Do CD's degrade over time?

[bootneck02]

As some of you know I had a problem with a virus which also got into my external drive which held all my file back ups and I lost all my files. I am at the moment downloading all my CD's back onto the C drive and during the down loading I check the quality and to my surprise I have found a couple of CD's that have a lot of distortion and background hissing making them impossible to listen to. I have tried all qualities of ripping including MP3 but it makes no difference. Looks like I will have to re purchase some Pogues and Enya CD's to replace the ones that will not rip with decent sound reproduction.

If CD's recordings do degrad how often should one re record so as not to lose sound quality.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Some CD's can degrade over time, even commercially purchased audio CD's, usually the older ones, the first CD's to hit the market.

Many will show a faint brown discolouring around the edge. Once it happens there's nothing you can do except throw them away. If you've paid for them once seems a shame to pay for them again. I have around 2000 albums plus my own compilations on CD and FLAC files, the FLAC files are stored on my media computer and two hard disks, one of which is stored in a remote location (my lockup) as a precaution against theft or fire.

It doesn't pay to have any media on only one format. Except, perhaps, vinyl.

You gotta PM

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

It depends on the care and quality of the CD as to how long it will last. I have CDs that are very old. dating back to the earliest release of the format for the music industry. They are scratched but will still play.

Leaving discs in a hot environment, such as a car, will hasten the degradation of the disc. There are several types of heat degradation. The foil can fail and end up with circular "burns" in the surface. The longer they are exposed to this environment, the larger the burn will get. Ultimately, this leads to an inability to read/play the disc.

Cheap CDs don't last as long as the more expensive ones. The quality of the plastic used to mold the coaster affects the durability of the surface and its resistance to scratches. The more expensive discs usually have a more durable foil. This results in a longer life against scratching and "burns." Music and movie industry made discs usually have a paint, ink or sticker that covers/protects the foil on which the media is kept.

Keeping discs in a climate controlled environment and in a container that does not allow the surface to be touched will ensure the longest life of your disc.

 

[bootneck02]

Thanks for the information Silverhazesurfer, the majority of my collection has only been downloaded too my hard drive twice this is the third time. So far I have had two box sets fail and one album, very disapointed about The Enya album which was a very expencive limited edition the four discs were ok the first time I riped them the second time about 4 years ago when I installed Vista one failed and this time they all failed the other ones were a box set of 6 Sinatra recordings, they had been previously riped 4 years ago after I had installed Vista and the Pouges CD was riped at the same time all three have not been out of their cases before or after they had been riped. So I am expecting some more to fail.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for the information Silverhazesurfer, the majority of my collection has only been downloaded too my hard drive twice this is the third time. So far I have had two box sets fail and one album, very disapointed about The Enya album which was a very expencive limited edition the four discs were ok the first time I riped them the second time about 4 years ago when I installed Vista one failed and this time they all failed the other ones were a box set of 6 Sinatra recordings, they had been previously riped 4 years ago after I had installed Vista and the Pouges CD was riped at the same time all three have not been out of their cases before or after they had been riped. So I am expecting some more to fail.

Sounds to me like your optical drive is faulty rather than the CD's if so many are failing.

Although I said CD's will fail it is relatively rare tbh. If the CD's play ok on a stand alone CD player (not your computer) then it's likely you want to swap out the optical drive you're using. Or you could try using a lens cleaner disk.

Currently a DVD-ROM can be had for about £20.00 and a DVD-RW for less than £30.00 for your computer.

 

[muckshifter]

So I am expecting some more to fail.

I concur with the Old man Mr FBS, go get another CD/DVD drive, a SATA one will be easy to fit & cheap.

My CD/DVDs are 'originals', and copies, that still play, or rip, with no problems at all ... I'm on me 3rd drive.

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

I agree. If the discs show no visible damage, you probably have an issue with the optical drive you use.

 

[Quadophile]

The life of the laser pickup is 5 years as specified by most manufacturers after which it starts to become weak. There are exceptions of course. It may fail earlier and it may last 10 years as well.

As for CD's degrading, the earliest ones used ink from Dupont which used to penetrate the foil and render the CD to be useless (unplayable) in most cases. Over a period of time the ink was improved and did not posed problems but it was good 5 years or so before the finding were available. I had a particular CD from Philips label of Paul Mauriat entitled Love is Blue which was pressed in the initial period 1983-84. This disk had very tiny holes, could be seen if held against the light. I used this particular CD to check the quality of the laser pick-up of CD players when I was testing them at different time. This gave me an idea of the error correcting capability of the player, some pick-ups were very good and some not so good irrespective of the price of the player.

Hands down the best transport built in the 90's was CDM-9 and its variants built by Philips. This transport was incorporated into some of the best players that I had the pleasure of hearing. I owned two player back then with this transport, one was the Quad 66 and the other was the Marantz CD-63SE. The transport was so good that Philips also made the CDM-9 Pro version and those were incorporated into some of the most expensive CD players in those days costing thousands.

 

[bootneck02]

Right guys thanks for your replies so now is another question on the same topic. When I have riped all my CD's onto my C drive and backed them up to an external disc how long will they be on the C drive before they start to degrade and I need to delete from the C drive and refresh from the external drive as I do not want to spend the hours and hours re riping them again, only to find more CD are useless. If that is the case we should have kept with vinyl and the CD manufactures should not create cheap shoddy crap.

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

As long as your hard drive has power, the data should stay as long as the drive works. I have seen data degrade from disks after a period of storage without power. The folder structure still appears the same and it seems as if all data is there. It is when you attempt to access the files that you get corrupt messages or missing file messages. This drive was a pretty old drive per today's standards and the technology/quality probably played a big part in it.

I currently have 396GB on an external travel drive (Iomega 500gb) that sits on the desk until I want it. It has been unplugged from power for upwards of 3 months and I haven't seen anything fail yet. Granted, it is a bit difficult to sort through 86,000 files and test them all, but you get the point.

Do not rely on any medium to be a "I-can-leave-this-here-forever" solution. Make a copy and a backup and then another copy if it is important to you.

 

[bootneck02]

Thanks Silverhazesurfer as to the storage , as to the questions of the CD drives they are less than 2 years old and are as follows :-
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223B ATA Device [Optical drive]
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q ATA Device [Optical drive]
I have a Blueray optical drive which I intend to install but with the virus havent had time to do so yet and that is a" Lite-On BD-ROM Drive HOS104"

 

[Quadophile]

For any data that you have on your drive you need to ask yourself this question:

Am I going to cry if I loose this file? If the answer is "yes" back it up.

On the other hand if instead of crying you end up laughing after loosing file/data, that means you have become a loony and should have backed up that file or data in at least two different places.

 

[muckshifter]

no, no, no ... backup your CD/DVDs onto blank CD/DVDs and backup them ... then rip to hard drive, backup to second Hard drive and take a backup image of that drive to an external hard drive, two should be good but the pros use three ... son, father, grandfather ... that way you only loose one backup providing you didn't over right the wrong one.

Oh, you'll probably be dead before the deterioration or you finish the project if you have a collection as large as Mr Old FBS

ALL electronic media fails, it's just a matter of when ... same as us, we ALL pass on to the great (insert your god here) in the sky ... then our relatives just chuck our stuff out anyway.

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

Thanks Silverhazesurfer as to the storage , as to the questions of the CD drives they are less than 2 years old and are as follows :-
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223B ATA Device [Optical drive]
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q ATA Device [Optical drive]
I have a Blueray optical drive which I intend to install but with the virus havent had time to do so yet and that is a" Lite-On BD-ROM Drive HOS104"

I remember when a virus' first attack was the ability to use a CD Rom drive. I haven't seen that behavior in a long time. I can probably attest that to the fact that CDR/RWs were invented and seen as a method to spread the infection.

Just a thought. I don't ever keep sensitive data on my home box. If it gets lost on the format, no big deal. Usually.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks Silverhazesurfer as to the storage , as to the questions of the CD drives they are less than 2 years old and are as follows :-

Less than 2 years old is no guarantee they're not failing.

In my 15-odd years of messin' with 'puters optical drives are the devices that have failed most on me, must have at least nine or ten go meet their maker, possibly more. Had one die (dated 2003) just a week or so ago.

I was e-mailed by Aria today and they're offering a DVD-RW drive for twelve quid. To persist with a drive where it's performance and reliability are doubtful is a false economy.

Bung in the Blu-Ray drive and try ripping the CD's with that.

And by way of interest, my experience only, after optical drives, these have been the components which have failed the most on me:

Floppy drives
Hard disks
Graphics cards
Memory
Motherboard

We will note that the top three devices to fail are all mechanical.

 

[bootneck02]

Yes you were right floppybootstomp it was one of my CD/DVD drives that is causing the problems, here was I blaming the CD them selves and it turns out to be the drive that is not performing on some of the CD's. So I am off to change the drive now. The one that is failing is the most used drive. Any way thanks to all the people who have replied to my plight and their suggestions, so far I have riped 100 gigs using Windows Media Audio Pro @192kbps so have a long way to go. Once again thank you all for your input especially floppybootstomp who reckoned it was system failure