emusonacid!

Okay, next problem:

I have a sample disc w/ a huge scratch in it -- half of the banks are screwed. But the first half of the disc still works fairly well... So what I want to do is copy the working half onto the HD and then ditch the CD. Problem is, there are about 200 banks on that half of the disc. Any way to tell the E-Mu to copy a whole folder at once to another drive? I can't figure it out if it's there... Loading and re-saving the banks one by one does not sound like a good idea.

Sometimes if you use the "extract from CD" function in wave editors it will read the entire CD fine.

This will do the job: http://www.chickensys.com/translator/translatorfree

There is I think a copy folder function, or at least you can back up one folder at a time, jsut be in folder mode and have the folder you want to copy selected, rather than at the disk level.

Aside from that here's a way to restore seriously screwed CD-ROMs:-

T-Cut is your friend. If you don't know what I mean, it's an automotive restoration polish for buffing out minor scratches out of car paintwork. it also works a treat on CD-ROMs.

It will ONLY work on the playing face of the CD, not the side that has the printing. This is because the side with the print only has a 1/10th of a mm laquer coating that is very prone to damage. If this coating damaged and hence the reflective layer is too then you may as well use it as a drinks coaster barring any info you can actually get off it. You won't be able to restore it.

On the otherhand the playing surface has a 1mm thick layer of polycarbonate (Same stuff you make aeroplane windows out of amongst other things). If the scratches are here then you are in luck, you should be able to buff them out with T cut, or some other similarly ultra fine abrasive.

Sounds odd but it's saved me on many an occaision.

Of course I take no responsability if you make the disk unplayable, so I suggest you try it on a worthless cd first so you can practice before working on a critical disk.

One final point, if you put a CD down, your natural reaction is to put it with the data layer facing up and the print facing down. THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA, as that laquer layer is very fragile Vs the relatively thick polycarbonate on the data side.

All of this also applies to audio CDs and DVDs.

Good luck!