OOps! A problem with older CD Rs

[smrgol]

My dad does volunteer work in the AV department at the local hospital.
When he was last in the department head was trying to get some data off of some five year old CDRs they had burned for the archive.

It seems that the permanant marker that they had labelled the discs with has damaged the CDs and made them unreadable.

This could potentally be a major problem for all of us who mark our CDs in this manner.

Comments

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Yikes! I've marked pretty much all of my CDs in this manner.

[raja-laba-laba.livejournal.com]

Plonq!!!!!!

*Runs over and gives da snowkitty a big hug*

(That's a really cute icon, btw ;) )

[swift-fox.livejournal.com]

Are they using Sharpie's??

*Hugs*

Swifty Fox

[kellic.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I don't believe that it was the market that caused the damage. A PM shouldn't damage the reflective coating on the front of the CD which is really the only way to kill a CD-R short of taking a box cutter to the back of the CD. Even scratches on the back can be fixed with the right tools.

Now I HAVE heard of cheap O CD-R's going bad after a while but its really rare.

[smrgol-t-kirin.livejournal.com]

The "reflective" layer is just under a very thin protective layer on the "label" side of the disc.

It could happen. Remember also that both markers and CD-R discs probably have been "improved" in the last five years too. The head of AV there is pretty good with computers, so if he said it's marker damage I'd be very inclined to believe him.

Re: Hermm..

[wolventerror.livejournal.com]

That is CD Rot-- that is something totally different. It is possible that the inks in the pen could have penetrated the outer protective layor of the disc. BUT another posibility could be the type of burner used.

See 5 years ago, before the advent of DVD-CD hybrids, there was a different standard for burning CDs. The laser bandwiths used are somewhat 'different' then they are not. THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE, but sadly, poor manufacturing dictates otherwise..

How do I know this? All my old CD burns will no longer work on my Laptop. They work fine on my desktop, but they will absolutely NOT work on a DVD-CD-R hybrid. So I replaced the burner in my desktop with a Memorex model which not only reads my old CD-Rs but burns them in such a way that my laptop has no problme reading them. It turned out to have something to do with the way my old acer made the discs.

The point of all this is that the CD's may indeed be fine- but you wont know for sure UNLESS you have an old burner or CD-Rom to try it in. What's more, is that were these CD's tested before? Did they used to work? Did anything change if they had?

Whether it is an incompatibility issue, or true damage caused by bad cd-rs or the markers, the point is that none of your data is truly 100% guarenteed. Sadly, I've taken to double backups and updated discs because of this fact. Even then, who the hell knows what will happen when the next big thing comes out..