Kodak Gold CD-R's going bye-bye?

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
Date: Tue Jul 24 13:09:52 2001

>> Personally, I have only had one read-failure in several hundred burns.
>> That's not counting a few coasters along the way - this was a partial
>> read-failure some six months to a year later when I came to use the
>> CD.
>
>Wait ten or twenty years, and then make your assessment. That's what Tim
>is concerned with.

One of the nasty things about CDR is the robust error correction, its like
idiot lights on a car dash, by the time you get a red light, the damage is
done and data most likely beyond recovery. The other thing is that at least
in my experience the damage to a CDR often starts at the outside edge, and
the data starts on the inside. Many CDRs get burnt with only a couple
hundred MB, so they have a large no data band between the start of damage,
and problems won't show up until the disc is almost totally hosed.

My guess is that about 3 or 5 years from now we will see a MASSIVE amount
CDR recovery and reburning going on. Damage is showing up already in small
percentages, but until people feel very confident in some new media the
reburning won't go past obviously damaged CDRs. Once the confidence in the
media is great enough, then people will want to reburn EVERYTHING.
Received on Tue Jul 24 2001 - 13:09:52 BST