Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 08:41:09 -0800 From: Parag Patel <parag@cgt.com> To: "Open Systems Networking" <opsys@mail.webspan.net>, "Gary T. Corcoran" <garycorc@idt.net> Cc: <hardware@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: CD-R and Scanner recomendations for CD archiving of records? Message-ID: <199803171640.IAA11589@mail3.sirius.com>
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On 3/17/98 5:27 AM, Open Systems Networking (opsys@mail.webspan.net) said:
>I have lost 50% of my CD-R discs during burning sessions because
>they were defective. That is pretty high. So I dont think I'll be using
>CD-R, maybe something more reliable, like punch cards :)
Here's some info from a friend of mine who did some research into CD-Rs.
Basically, there are (at least?) three slightly different technologies
used for making the blanks - I assume three slightly different
chemical/physical layouts. There's no tell which which brand uses what
and doubtless they change formulas at the drop of a hat to save some
pennies. You can look at the blanks and tell - they're slightly
different shades of color.
Anyway, my friend went through a bunch of different brands of CD-Rs and
had most of the problems you had - the cheap CD-R blanks just aren't
reliable. He also found that some CD-R brands just won't work in some
CD-R drives. The Sony CD-R drives had no trouble burning anything nor
did the Phillips (I think), but he had trouble with most other CD-R
drives.
However, some brands of CD-R blanks worked reliably in all CD-R drives.
These include Sony, TDK, and I seem to remember Verbatim. There may be
others. Of the known working brands, I've found the TDKs to be the
cheapest and so have stuck with them.
The only CD-R I've ever screwed up was my fault - I tried to put an image
on it that was too big when experimenting with cdrecord. It warned me
but but I just ignored it - if it's just a warning it can't be very
important, right?
I have also found that some older CD-ROM drives (read-only) will not
reliably read CD-R, specifically my old Apple 4X CD-ROM on my Mac. I
still haven't upgraded it as I can use the CD-R drive itself to read them
when necessary. Newer 4X Apple drives with updated firmware work just
fine, so it's basically just my luck to have lemon firmware.
-- Parag Patel <parag@cgt.com>
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