recovering data from un-closed cd

One of my friends made a backup cd of a bunch of papers he wanted to keep, but he told direct cd to keep it open for writing. Now whenever he puts in the cd it says the cd is blank. Scanning the disk with direct CD doesnt work, and using a data recovery program such as bad copy isnt working either. When I flipped the cd upside down I could see that it had been burnt a little bit, so I know theres some data on there.

try taking it into a burner app like nero. then save the track as an img (iso, nrg, etc.) and then take winiso/ultraiso/anyf'niso app to see if u can extract it.
i did this once when i had a dvdr with that type of problem.. did the above and was able to save all my stuff.

I'll give that a try...