WARNING: CD_Rs can go bad suddenly

Interesting! To this day, I have yet to use my CR-R drive. Have no idea why not.

In the photo it appears the recording media has peeled away from the base plastic. Certainly not a good thing, and something that should be noted carefully by those that backup valuable information. Thanks for the heads-up, Ted.

Harold

When cd's were a newer technology it was assumed that they would last "forever". It has proven to not be the case. Some cd's fail within just a few years, or even sooner. A quick Google search led me to various opinions on how long they should last, and how differing plastics, dyes, and manufacturing methods affect cd lifespan. All sources agree that cd's are not immortal or invincible.

That's one reason I make two backup cd's every time I make archival cd's. Even if the cd's last a long time, I might (and have) leaned on a cd with my elbow, causing "catastrophic media failure". At leat I didn't get cut.

This is a big topic over in...

comp.publish.cdrom.multimedia

comp.publish.cdrom.hardware

and

alt.comp.periphs.cdr

Many in these groups feel blank CD-R's made by 'Taiyo Yuden' (sp?) are probably the best available... Fuji CD'R's made in Japan (and ONLY their Japanese made ones, as they also make disc's elswhere with identical looking packaging) are supposed to actually be manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

I've been reading these group on and off for a year or so, and have never heard of a failure like yours... sure hope it doesn't turn out to be a typical occurrence.

Some are beginning to question CD-R's & RW's as being archival...

Erik

People, unless informed otherwise, seem to assume digital things will last forever. Entropy and confidence levels are still applicable.

Better check those VHS home movies, too.

Where were the CD-Rs kept?

They don't like heat, and they don't like sunlight.

Reminds me of a friend of mine who burned EPROMS for many customers but only had trouble with one particular client...

When I make CDs for the historical society, I usually use two different brands. I like the Kodak Gold but otherwise use generic from verbatim and others. I think the important thing is to keep them from sunlight and humidity. Keeping them in the car is a real bad idea.

I have to use them often, since my hard drives are too small. I've taken over

11,000 photos in the last year and a half with my Sony F-707. At 2.2 meg each, that eats up storage space pretty fast. Some family stuff has at least 6 or more copies being stored out there. I would like to go to DVD, but that is even more unproven so far.

Earle Rich Mont Vernon, NH

Note that I said, "CD-Rs are the most reliable ..." not that they are absolutely reliable.

Ted

True but I have one set on a shelf by my desk - room temperature and no direct sun. Our house is very well insulated so the temperature range has been 20C to 26C. I have burned ~50 CD-Rs and had a friend burn 20 or 30 (before I got a burner). This is the first such problem to arise.

Ted

Obviously I can't apply this to CDs (yet) but when I was teaching, we made class disks (floppies) for our students. Between us we made hundreds (thousands?) and found no statistically significant difference in failure rate between the cheapest discount store disks and the "name" brands. Some of my old floppy backups go back to the late 80's.

Ted

Yes. Apparently blistered from the edge.

Ted

I found out the hard way that they don't like humidity at all. I use to have a cholorine bucket radio I made and would leave it in the pool cause it just looked like a bucket. It rained one night and about 10 CD's developed random bubbles in the foil from the humidity. Sure do miss my favorites of the Stones and the other 9. I made a new one out of a old typewriter box that is much easier to carry with CD and tape and never gets left on a job site. I'm about to go back to tape , sure they have their problems , but some of those CD skips drive me crazy when I don't have time to fix it. I was talking to someone on a job about the problem and he said he was watching a movie on DVD and this guy meets a girl and then all of a sudden they are climbing out of bed. I'd rather put up with tracking problems and hear or watch than miss it all together.

What's the current assesment of DVDs and DVDRs for longetivity?

Does sound like defective manufacture then. Disks not properly cleaned before being coated or something like that.

Or alternatively solvent contamination at some point. Even small amount of solvents ccan cause CDs to popple.

They don't like moisture! I sometimes soak them in warm water. After a while the dye and aluminising can be scrubbed off with a nail brush.

Steve R.

Here's a tip I've found useful.

Whenever you change CDR brands, take a brand new disk and snap it in half.

On a good disk, the gold or aluminum will stay firmly attached to both halves of the disk and any small fragments that might be created.

If you end up with a shower of aluminum or gold confetti and some of the broken pieces have obviously lost their metal then it might pay to steer clear.

One of the most common modes of failure is where the reflective layer detaches from the plastic -- and this simple test will ensure that the adhesion (at least when you buy them) is up to scratch.

I saved myself quite a bit of grief with this test -- I'd bought a spindle of 50 *cheap* silver disks and they "confettied" when snapped. Sure enough, within a few months I was getting data errors on the few that I burned with non-critical data. Close inspection showed that the foil was lifting in some places.

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