The world of computer data storage media certainly has moved on since the old days of 8 or 5.25-inch floppy disks. Modern and far more reliable recordable and re-writable CD's have virtually completely replaced the floppy disk. Unfortunately problems do still exist, which can cause data to be corrupted and lost.

When disaster strikes and you find you've got a data loss issue with one of your recordable/ re-writable CD's there are a number of simple troubleshooting moves you can make to try to get that all important data back.

First of all, make sure you know the disc in question is a CD and not a fairly similar looking DVD disc. It follows that you should ensure the disc drive on your computer is designed for CD's and not DVD's. CD players don't function properly with DVDs, but, some DVD players can read CD's.

Next you should try and make the CD as clean as possible using an air canister or, lint-free cloth or wiper. The best cleaning hand motions are from the centre of the disk out to the disc edge. Don't move the wiper in a circular motion. A small quantity of distilled water can help very tough marks to come off. Removing marks such as dirty fingerprints or felt tip pen ink will improve the discs readability.

Ensure the cabling connecting the computer to the drive is snug and secure. Cables are actually able to move out of their sockets with repeated shutdowns or startups due to associated expansion and contraction cycles. Screwing or clipping the cable to the drive can help reduce this problem.

Try re-recording the data onto a CD-R, if it was originally stored on a rewritable CD. This is useful in that CD-R's are often more easily read by CD drives since they have improved physical recording processes. If the CD drive is old then the opposite may be true, in this case place a rewritable CD in the old drive, older CD drives will have more of a chance of reading this type of disk.

The computer BIOS needs to be looked at to ensure it is not corrupted. The BIOS can be found upon the initial boot-up process of the computer, usually by pushing a specific key, e.g. F1. Once in the BIOS the CD drive should be listed in the boot-up sequence. When booting up the computer, the CD drive should be listed in the right place, typically second within the drive sequence.

The driver(s) can be reinstalled by their careful removal from the 'device manager list'. After this reboot the system and wait for Windows to install the driver automatically. Upon following this many small problems can be ironed out. If problems still persist you can remove the CD drive from the registry, then using the windows 'device manager' you can reinstall it.

If after having tried these basic methods of countering a data issue on your CD with no positive results you will most likely have to travel to a specialist data recovery expert. Specialists have an array of equipment and procedures that will more often than not yield good results fast.