CD-R longevity

Fred Langa of The LangaList <URL:http://www.langa.com/>
has addressed the issue. Excerpt from
<URL:http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-11-06.htm>:

    How *Not* To Mess Up Stored CDRs!

    Be careful! Even little things--including the glue on stick-on
    labels--can ruin your CDRs.

    That's one of the things your fellow readers and I found when we
    went back and tested long-stored CDs. In my case, the only disks
    that failed were those that I had covered with a glue-on paper
    label from a print-it-yourself CD label-maker kit. Several of
    these labeled CDs were, in fact, totally unreadable by every
    means I tried (including special data recovery software); all
    the data on those CDs is just plain gone. My best guess is the
    glue on these do-it-yourself labels interacted with either the
    foil or the dye, rendering the CDs useless.

    All the info we have on unusual CDR failures and what you can do
    about them, appears in the new article live now at
        <URL:http://www.informationweek.com/story/
            showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15800263>

    I'll also include links to other articles, from the general to
    the deeply technical, so you can explore this issue to whatever
    depth you want.

    If you burn CDs or CDRWs, please check out this important
    information, and then join in the discussion: Have you checked
    your old CDs? Have you discovered problems? If so, are there
    patterns to the failures? If you have no or few CD failures,
    what storage methods are you using; what tips can you share to
    help others achieve long storage life?

    See you at
        <URL:http://www.informationweek.com/story/
            showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15800263>

    **** Moderator's comments: The above URL has been wrapped for
    email. There should be no newline.

He has some more articles on this also.

Joseph Goldman


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:52
                 Distributed: Sunday, February 1, 2004
                       Message Id: cdl-17-52-003
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