A friend's hard drive has crashed. He has a backup CD which he cannot read, and he cannot remember how it was created (!). He has asked me to help.
If I try to read the CD through Windows Explorer, I just see a single 650mb file called BK_02_59.DAT
I opened the file (using Python) and read the first 80 bytes. It is mostly binary characters, but the first 4 characters are 'NERO'. Therefore I assume that it was created with NERO CD-burning software.
Please can someone suggest how I can read the contents of this CD.
I will be out of town for a couple of days, so I will try out your suggestions when I get back. I will report my results - should be by the end of the week.
Look if your friend's hard drive is corrupted or there's a problem with the registry/system boot files then a Backup CD is going to provide you no help.
That Backup CD is simply a copy created by Nero of your My Document's folder, Administrator/Driver settings and other assorted important information, you can't use it to restore your computer magically back to it's previous state, as I assume you want to.
You need to try either System Restore from Safe Mode if that isn't possible, or if the OS won't even boot up, then it looks like your going to have format and reinstall Windows.
What exactly do you mean by "his hard drive has crashed"?
