CD-R discs going bad after a time

J

JimH

New member
I’m having some cases of audio CDs I’ve burned becoming unplayable after a while. Has this happened to anyone else? I’m wondering what the problem is. My CD burner is a Yamaha CRW4416.

A while back, burned a CD and mail it to a friend. After some time (not sure how long, but probably several months) it stopped being playable for him. The CDs I was using at that time were cheap and I was also having them go bad on me, so I decided to stick with name-brand after that. More recently in December, I sent my friend a couple more CDs I burned. This time I used high-quality Maxell CDR pro discs and I burned at 1x speed (not that it matters, but it can’t hurt). I just found out that one of those CDs has become unplayable for him, although it worked fine for a while.

Shouldn’t CD-Rs last a long time? What could the problem be? Do I need a new CD burner? Although my burner might be considered a bit old these days, it has not seen a great deal of use so I doubt it’s worn out or anything. Has anyone else had such a problem?
 
I doubt they're unplayable - if you used audio CDs, then tried to duplicate them, the copy will fail to playback on consumer gear due to SCMS copy protection.

These so-called "audio" CDs have the SMCS bit pre-burned into them, disabling the ability to copy the CD after the initial burn.

You're best not using any CD-R designated as "audio only"... and avoid buying any gear that requires exclusive use of them!
 
Thanks. But no, they’re not audio CD-Rs. They’re regular data CD-Rs. I'm recording music that my friend and I created. They worked for a while then stopped.
 
>Do I need a new CD burner?

Not necessarily! I'd chalk it up to the player being used to read the discs you have sent.

The key factor here: do these discs still play on YOUR system?

Have you experienced this on your system with old discs or is it just reported by those to whom you have sent discs?

Reasons for this could be a compatibility issue between the player and the media or a CD-ROM failure.

>They’re regular data CD-Rs

OK- the blanks are not those pre-burned "audio" CDRs but what format was used to burn the data? Data or Audio?
Audio CDRs are more likely to fail than data CDRs because there isn't the same error checking during the read like on a data CDR.
 
I've actually had this same thing happen to me. Are the cheap silver top CDs? those scratch really easily and once the TOC is damaged they just rev up over and over never catching or reading the disks.

Also try them in your CD burner and see if they read from there. Sometimes disks burned in my girlfriends computer will only read from her CD burner. I don't know why but it does happen.
 
Hey Jake Owa

Yeah,I have the same problem.My CDs start to scratch real easy.DO you recomend a better CD W?Are those expensive CDs you can get off of Muscisians Freind,the Silver ones,good>?
 
I think I've seen the same problem,...

that some CDRs may not hold their music/data integrity on the disc, sometimes resulting in a whooshing, scratching, staticky, distinctly analog sounding audio flaws in the music,... kinda like your oldest turntable and the oldest record you got when you were 6 sounds now.

I've seen this occur mainly on the discs I've labelled with 'official' Memorex CD labels, ink-printed, of course. What I think is happening, in my case, is that after about 18 months the glue from the label saturates or corrupts part of the data-encoded emulsion layer of the CDR, from the topside down.

The reason I think this, is that a manufactured, store-bought, professionally printed CD will have an overlayer of plastic over the actual laser sensitive data emulsion, [label-side/topside], and therefore they're sealed and stable. On the other hand, I think some CDRs have their data-emulsion side [topside] exposed directly to the outside world, being susceptible to topside scratches, some harsher inks in inkpens, and yes, the glue that adheres the CD label to the CDr.

I have many CDR discs that began life as any other CDR recording, and now within about 2 years' time, I'm finding that some of the ones with the more elaborate labelling are developing the "crud", and may eventually need to be replaced.

Anyway, that's my take on it. I'm not very happy with it, having come to this conclusion, but I've always noticed the CDR was not as stable or bulletproof as people would have once led you to believe.

Also, not to gloss over the obvious, but we've all seen the data side of the disc get scratched, and become unusable because of data-side scratches,... anyone here have kids?... but what I've described above seems label-side related corruption of the data emulsion surface, IMO, YMMV.;)
 
The key factor here: do these discs still play on YOUR system?
Click to expand...

In the beginning, I bought some no-name-brand CDs that were cheap (ironically, they were called “Great Quality”). I archived some data to these, not audio. After about a year, I could not read half of these on my computer CD drives. Also, one of these I sent to my friend (songs burned in audio format) and that one went bad on him after a time. Obviously, this was just a case of cheap CDs going bad.

So after this, I bought only Memorex or Maxell CDs. I’ve never had a problem with any of these myself. I even own a very old consumer CD player in my stereo system, somewhere around 10 years old I think. I’ve never been able to play any CD-Rs in it at all. That is, until I bought these Maxell CDR Pro discs last December. These are the only discs I’ve ever burned that will play in it. They seem to be the best I’ve used so far.

So using the Maxells, I burned 2 discs containing of a couple of songs my friend wrote for his girlfriend. (Just to be clear, these were data CD-Rs to which I burned the 2 songs in audio format.) He gave one to his girlfriend for Christmas. Now I just got a letter from his girlfriend saying that the disc stopped working. I don’t know if it was scratched or damaged in any way, but I assume not.

The only thing I can think of is that her CD player is border-line in terms of being able to play CD-Rs. But it would have to be fairly old. I’d find out more about it except that I don’t talk to them that regularly—a phone call across the country costs more than a blank CD. :) Obviously I can’t try out their discs myself since they live so far away.

But one thing is common in all these cases of failed CDs: the CD works for a while and then it stops working. I think that’s a bit odd. I wonder if they are degraded by light after a time.

Anyway, thanks for the responses. I’ll send my friend another copy of the CD and see how it goes. I guess there’s not much more I can do.
 
Yes, the top of the disc is more fragile than the bottom. If you get scratches in the bottom you can usually polish them out enough to read the disc if they're not too deep.

The thin layer of metal inside the disc that actually holds the pits that make up the data can also go bad if it starts to corrode or is exposed to UV light.

If you can get the disc to read, copy the data to you HDD. This will correct any errors and you can burn a fresh copy.

Keep those discs in the cases, away from moisture and out of the light!
 
Reel Person, we just posted at the same time and I missed yours. Now that you mention it, on every CD I sent to my friend I stuck a label. I haven’t put labels on my own discs. So that could possibly have something to do with it. But the blank CDs do not seem to have their surface exposed on the top. There is some kind of coating for their own label, like paint or whatever. So no glue from my stick-on label would penetrate. But I guess that what you are saying is that the glue from their own label might be what’s causing the trouble.

I may try sending a CD with no label. But it would be a bummer if I could never label CDs any more.
 
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I just write on the disc with a Sharpie. Never had a problem yet. Got some discs here that are 4-5 years old here and they read fine.
 
Yeah, the label is important, and I've labelled the vast majority of my discs,...

which makes me worry a lot.

However, if the topside of the typical CDR looks 'protected', I'd venture to say it's not. There's just a thin film of mylar and tinfoil over the data emulsion, topside,... [my own layman's terms]. Stick your fingernail in it and dig, and you can peel it off the disc like a very thin sheet of film, and your data with it. That's all that covers the data "emulsion",...

[emulsion- a throwback term from my film photography days].

Yeah, it's disconcerting that a made-for-cd-label would seemingly tend to break down the surface it's supposed to protect. There's irony, and another hole in the theory that digital's "bulletproof". What's funniest, is when this begins to happen, it's a distinctly analog sounding noise it gives off. Haha, joke's on me, I guess.:rolleyes:
 
Re: Hey Jake Owa

Chammy said:
Yeah,I have the same problem.My CDs start to scratch real easy.DO you recomend a better CD W?Are those expensive CDs you can get off of Muscisians Freind,the Silver ones,good>?
Click to expand...
The silver ones all suck. Buy the white or printed top type. It doesn't matter which brand just a major one (sony, maxell, tdk, fuji, ..)They are all better than comp USA or cheap bulk silver top CDs.
 
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