I got a CD in the mail yesterday that is supposed to have some sort of presentation on it (Powerpoint?). Supposedly, it was too big to email and thus was sent snail mail on CD.

But when I load the disc, all that I see is “Files ready to be written to the disc” and a file called “desktop.ini” listed below. Other CDs work fine on the computer.

I think that the disc might not have been burned properly, the recording session was not closed or something similar that means it won’t work. It appears that maybe 1/4 of the CD has been recorded based on color change on the underside.

Is there anything that I can do to read the disc?

If the data that’s already on there is not a corrupted session, you should be able to close the session using Nero or similar.

Don’t have Nero, just Win 8 default stuff. 😐

I’ve had Nero on old computers in the past, but just don’t use discs much anymore..

Work round?
Dropbox, google drive or any other cloud based storage solution.

Also possible the content of the presentation is still on the computer it was made on and they have only written the ppt.file or a CD file that references it.

I see this a lot in conference land especially since CD burning is rarer these days.

Sounds like a blank disc to me.

Dropbox or similar was my first idea. But we’re dealing with the state government here in Pennsylvania. I only made the request back on Jan 27… 🙄

I’m virtually certain that it is on the original computer. But that is 4 hour drive away; no doubt in a locked state office building operated by someone that doesn’t have the forethought to take the newly burned CD to another computer to make sure that it works before mailing it! 😡

What I really need is a way to finish burning a CD (which I didn’t start burning) or otherwise find out what is on the disc.

Edit – disc does not appear to be blank as I can see a color change on a portion of the bottom side

maybe despite its age this will help: http://superuser.com/questions/148647/how-to-read-old-non-finalized-cds

Sometimes, getting government agencies or large corporations to use modern well encrypted file transfer can be tough. Much easier to pop a disc or thumb drive in the mail or to a courier. It’s traditional and feels secure.

Thanks pgp, I’ll try those.

The presentation is on a proposal to require a permit for non-hunting uses on State Game Lands (like mountain biking) so no need for it to be encrypted, kept confidential, or anything else. IMO, it should be on their website.

I’m really curious to see how huge this thing is as apparently it is impossible to email or post online! I’ll bet that its a powerpoint with lots of 10MP photos that were never resized to screen resolution and is therefore 20x larger than it needs to be… 🙄

pgp – those didn’t work, unfortunately. Thanks anyhow.

Good luck. a ‘proposal’: a potential powder keg of lobbyist and media interest? I expect you’re right on the photos. I’m used to similar things: massive image files in powerpoint to be projected at SVGA resolution.