2 weeks ago I reinstalled win95 to a pentium 133 pc that I have. The disk i= s a burned copy from the origina disk that I had. I always make cpies from = software that I buy. So the disk is about 10 years old and works perfectly. On the other hand I recently bought a tower of cds to burn mp3s. I played t= he burned disk once. The second time I tried to it wouldn't work...for 100 = cds the sam thing happened. Even on diferent computers... Juan Cubillo -----Original Message----- From: "Ken Pergola (sent by Nabble.com)" Sent: 1/12/2006 7:58:36 PM To: "piclist@mit.edu" Cc: = Subject: [OT] Is your oldest CD-R still readable? How old is your oldest recorded CD-R disc? Is it still readable? I was amazed at the claims made in this article (see below) without any dat= a to back up the claims: =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Storage Expert Warns Of Short Life Span For Burned CDs IBM experts are urging consumers -- and companies -- to consider = magnetic tape storage devices if they want to preserve their digital = content long term. http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/242241/185491/5939/0/ Quotes below are taken from the article mentioned further into this post: "...burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five yea= rs, depending on the quality of the CD..." "Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life sp= an of around two years..." "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of= five years." = =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Obviously no one has a 20- or 30-year old CD-R yet...so there is a lot of s= peculation out there with regard to shelf-life. I can't believe, and have p= ersonally disproved through my own experience with CD-Rs, some of the claim= s made in that article. I really would like to have seen some data to back = up those statements. The oldest CD-R that I own is a Kodak PhotoCD disc that was professionally = produced in September of 1995. After over 10 years, it is still readable. A= ccording to the above article, it shouldn't be. I purchased my first CD bur= ner in late 1997. I have numerous CD-Rs burned in 1998 that are still reada= ble. I'd be interesting to hear if anyone out there has a CD-R older than 10 yea= rs and whether anyone has had any of their CD-Rs disc rendered unreadable u= nder "normal" circumstances through the passage of time. I've also read claims (not in that story listed above) that virgin CD-Rs ha= ve a shelf-life, but I have virgin CD-Rs that are over 5 years old that can= still be recorded to. A good read on the care and feeding of optical media is: Information Technology: Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs =97A Guide for Librarians and Archivists NIST Special Publication 500-252 Fred R. Byers If interested, you should be able to find the PDF file with a search engine. Best regards, Ken Pergola P.S. My apologies if this post did not get sorted into the OT category. I d= on't see an OT option in Nabble so I added '[OT]' in hopes that it would no= t be posted to the [PIC] category. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/-OT-Is-your-oldest-CD-R= -still-readable--t907869.html#a2354218 Sent from the MicroControllers - PIC forum at Nabble.com. -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist