CD rot

In the previous article I wrote about the musical meetings I did many years ago. In these meetings, I burned a lot of CD-Rs for my valuable collection. I thought a burned CD-R could last a hundred years. I was wrong.

Two or three years after the meetings, a friend asked me for a song I had in my custom CDs. I found the disc and proceeded to extract a track from the CD (a process called ripping).
Suddenly, the ripping software showed up an increasing number of disc read errors. I was surprised because the disc wasn't scratched. So I ejected the CD and put it near the window. I saw a brownish discolouring at the edge of the disc. Then I remembered when I studied the CD manufacturing process, if the CD's laquer coating fail, the air corrodes the reflective layer (changing its color), destroying it, and making the disc useful only as a frisbee.

You cannot imagine the horror expression drawn in my face. I started to check ALL my collection of CD-Rs. Some CDs looked good, but others (fortunately just a few discs) had the infamous CD rot. The affected discs showed up the same read errors in the last tracks (at the disc's edge).

If you have valuable CD-Rs burned years ago, take a look on them...