CDR Media randomly "falling apart"

Today I went to check for some old data, which i stored on cdr discs like a few years back (probably around 2002-2004), to my surprise a lot of them have started to just "fall apart":



Holding them against the light makes it more obvious, there are actually tiny holes in the layers h:



It happend to all kinds of brands including Medion, TDK, Phillips and Verbatim.

How can this just happen after such a "short" time?
The dics are all kept in a dry room, locked in a plastic box in seperate sleeves like this:



I did not lose any important data, just some nice memories like pictures and random stuff, I'm just surprised to find the discs in such a condition.

As you see above some of the discs are completely fine, while most of them are horrible. Anyone else had something like this happening before?

 

I have loads of non-brand silver CDR's from a few years ago that are the same, I back things up to new discs every now and then as I have had so many important things lost because of stuff like this.

 

Hasn't happened to me, yet. Happens a lot to CDRs. Especially ones made in India, or China. Taiwan is alright, but Japan is usually the best. I put a lot of my backup CDs onto DVDs so that they take up less space. Let's hope the DVD medias don't have a 5-10year life span.

 

It's really common and not limited to cheap CD-R's (I had that trouble with TDK, Benq and Sony discs), it's caused by humidity (it's a kind of fungus) and there's no way to save the disc from its destiny. If you see that on your discs backup what it has and throw it away, it will infect all surrounding discs in a matter of weeks (or even days). I lost over 100 discs this way, so I know what I'm talking about.

 

Happened to me as well. Most of the time you can rescue most of the contents (the ones that are not fubared) with proper tools. Sometimes you can even rescue some of the broken sectors, with error correction.

Anyway, important lesson - if you have important stuff to archive, make redundant copies and store them in different locations (bank deposit, your basement, mom's basement (jokes aside ), etc).

 

If you have something really important to archive, use pendrives. They're way more reliable than optical discs.

 

Say that to the 4GB pendrive in my pocket that randomly converts everything into "0000000.000" files...

 

Now I dont have a fucking clue of what to do with my data: I'm already 20GB shy of getting the new HDD I just bought completelly filled up.

I started getting some data onto verbatim DVD+R discs, but after reading this I dont know what to do.

 

So it actually is some type of fungus?! That is fucking creepy. But everything you said makes sense, since most damaged discs come from the same box. I would think the plastic sleeves would protect it from humidity, or at least the fungus thing growing over, but nope.

I did what you said and threw them out, no chance to read any data from it.

 

Packets of silica gel help with soaking up humidity.

 

Duplicate your important data backups. Stuff I can't replace (like digital photos etc), I back up to both DVD/R & HDD, periodically rotating the HDDs out & storing them somewhere safe (so, I always have a snaphot I can return to).

Instead of fungus, I wonder if this is more akin to the laser-rot that LDs could suffer from. Contanimants were present on the adhesives used at time of manufacture & these caused the reflective layer to slowly oxidize. I've never seen a CD/R as bad as the ones shown, though (except for ones that had paid a visit to the microwave! ;-))

 

This is why it's important to make regular backups, especially on protos!

 

I've noticed this before but only on CDRs that have a water saluable top
layer..The kind where if they get wet the label surface melts or smudges
off. Older Verbatim discs come to mind.

On blank silvers with no label or CDRs with screen printed labels I've never
seen this.

 

I saw it on both, even with worse effects that normal CD-Rs. Blank silvers have only one layer (the metallic one) so are really vulnerable to this kind of troubles, but the ones with something printed in the top side have 2 or more layers, so it takes some more time to damage the metallic surface. Maybe you will never see this on an original CD, this is because they have 7 layers in order to protect them (lots of times with thin plastic layers over the writable area)

 

I think most of the time it's a combination of bad quality, poor storing conditions, and time. That's one reason not to buy cheap CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. If possible, only buy good ones made in Japan or atleast a high quality brand and not cheapo bargin ones. Store them in cases and the cases in a dark, cool, and dry place. Then you should be fine. If you are really paranoid, they do make special archive type CD-Rs and DVD-Rs which cost more but are said to last alot longer.

 

This happened to one of my best music CD's.

Disc Rot fuckin sucks

 

I think storage conditions are the biggest factor. I have several brands of CD-R that still work, with several from back around '99 or 2000 that still work. I've always kept mine in Case Logic CD wallets and binders or in jewel cases in stored in drawers/dark areas.

 

Damn. Maybe i'll just back my stuff up to flash drives instead.

 

It's the best idea, USB HDDs can do the work too (but remember storing them in good conditions). I should get a big one soon, with over 300 discs something like that can be really a pain in the ass...