Data retrieval software?

Looking for some input from the techies amongst us.

I have a CD/DVD-ROM that has several folders containing photos. All are fine except one folder - this folder simply refuses to show the contents. Nothing saying corrupt etc, it just sits trying to load a blank explorer but gets nowhere. I've left it for hours with no joy.

These are the last copies I have of the pictures after someone damaged my camera with the originals.

Can anyone recommend a pc based software that may help me retrieve them?

Tried Google but obviously every hit is a biased advertisement.

simply copy everything on that disc including that folder to somewhere on your harddrive

1. you'd have a backup of everything
2. that folder may load as normal from your hdd rather then a crummy old disk

did you make the disc yourself?
how did you make it? more specific, what speed did you write the data in ? max write speed or lower?
what exact type of disc is it? is it a rewritable? was something to it written before?

I've tried to copy it, doesn't work, just hangs.

It's a writable cd-rom. Can't remember speed etc but it was a fresh disc when I used it, I did it 13 years ago.

Well those specific files in that folder are likely permanently lost, nothing to do there.

And I was asking about the speed of burning because it has an impact of how deep the data is written into the actual disc layers.
If written slowly although faster is possible, the laser basically stays on the same place longer and in turn burns the data in deeper.
The deeper, the more resilient to scratches etc. even when the disc would get scratched or even buffed.

The files are simply corrupted, either from the burning, or before the burning (unlikely but possible), or some damage to the disc even though it may look perfectly fine.

Recovery chances are very slim to none.
You can try a bunch of programs, but most of them will be limited in how much you can actually recover, unless you buy the full $$$ version.
Otherwise they would just let you scan and maybe recover like 3 files, if any at all.

Your best chances of recovery would be to ship it out to professional recovery services, but ...that's gonna be even more $$$$$.

CDs, CD-Roms etc have been rotting ever since they came out, some faster than others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot
If the layer storing the data is damaged then, as Xeretrax says, your files are quite possibly lost, or damaged.
However, clouding/scratches to the bottom surface of the disk can stop the device's laser from retrieving the data; and old farts have used methods of buffing/polishing the surfaces since before the Internet became popular. I personally have successfully used toothpaste &soft tissue and recovered stuff of a CD-Rom.
There's plenty of youtube vids on the subject e,g How to Fix a Scratched or Damaged Disc and Unreadable Disc Error for Xbox, Playstation, and PC
There machines that polish https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Innovations-1018300-SkipDr-Classic/dp/B0015ACUKC
But all dependent on the data being present.

Some data retrieval software will freeze or hang, due to the windows system searching for drives, windows 7 onwards. It's sometimes possible to stop this using run cmd (run as administrator) DISKPART automount disable DISKPART automount scrub You really don't want to use any of the other DISKPART commands,

photorec always found it to be decent software, it's free, there's a gui version called qphotorec iirc.
Good luck anyway!