There are plenty of utilities out there designed to help you recover data you've accidentally deleted. But what if your PC won't even recognize the disc you're trying to read?

CD Recovery Toolbox helps you grab information from any optical disc in your drive, whether Windows recognizes it or not. Don't let the name fool you, CD Recovery Toolbox can also handle DVDs and HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

If your disc is scratched, chipped, or has marks on the surface, Windows will have a difficult time reading it. But that doesn't mean all the data's lost. CD Recovery Toolbox scans the disc and locates all the files that can be recovered and lets you copy them to your hard drive.

The free utility should run on any PC running Windows 98 or later.

[via Uneasy Silence]