TheRetroRecall thanks for deferring to Wikipedia's info on Disc Rot. That's a good source of what it is. However, somewhere I believe it also mentions that the disc manufacturing process is a guarded secret. So it is unlikely we will truly know just what is going on. Bit of a shame, as many have be sold on the idea media or physical discs will last a long time and have started large collection.

@TheRetroRecall

2 ай бұрын

I know I have many more in perfect condition than that of bad. However this is something I've seen with others that experienced the same issue.

The warranty’s small print says “this product is covered for the lifetime of a typical Japanese house fly"

@TheRetroRecall

2 ай бұрын

Haha!

Never seen it or heard of it til this, I'm the kind of person that does worry about such thing and loosing data.... Hard to buy so much knowing if this was to happen my family would call it a waste of money..... I do take care of data the best I can along side my PC.......I have learned from losing some over the years Thank You.....

@TheRetroRecall

11 ай бұрын

No problem!

I have a few CDs that have suffered disc rot, usually the cheaper manufactured discs. My OEM Windows 98 install CD has some delaminating starting on it but it still works fine.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

I've started to image my collection just in the off chance. I would hate to loose my stuff from 20+ years ago!

Great video, learn something new every day...never knew about this

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed!

can you feel the "texture" of the crystal-like pattern on the surface? i have had ones that looked like that, but it builds up on the outside surface and can still be cleaned. if the surface is smooth and the crystal is "inside", then its indeed disc rot. i remember reading an article simewhere that says Blank discs have expiration date, usually not more than 10 years, so old Blank disc is more susceptable to disc rot than burned disc.

@TheRetroRecall

7 ай бұрын

Unfortunately it is very smooth. I've tried cleaning one disc to see and nothing.

It all depends where you store them my friend if you left it in the garage or basement where it’s freezing and gets super hot during the summer then yes that’s what happens if you leave your media in the living room where you live everyday then they will be fine put it this way if you are comfortable then your media is too if you are not then neither are they

@TheRetroRecall

6 ай бұрын

Appreciate it. These were in a climate controlled house. In a closet on a shelf. Very interesting.

As a collector of CD-R media, I have ONLY seen this on new, unused Sony CDQ-74BN media made in 1997-1998 by Taiyo Yuden. There were two different varieties affected. First type is the CDQ-74BN with gold reflective layer and ATIP of 97m24s00f. Second type is the CDQ-74BN with silver reflective layer (as you have) with ATIP of 97m24s01f.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this info. So, are you saying that this is strictly a defect and 'Disc rot' is not a thing?

@PoweredByCNG

Жыл бұрын

@@TheRetroRecall In this case, I believe so. I've got CD-Rs made by the same manufacturer from just before and just after those years and even during the same years sold under different brand names and only the Sony products have exhibited this problem. In relation to CDs and DVDs that have been in use for years and lower quality products, I have seen unrelated issues such as failure of the reflective layer and deterioration of the recording dye. I would probably classify these failures as "disc rot" more so than the batch-specific failure of the polycarbonate on the Sony products.

Those bad cds look like the glue delaminated. They were probably a bad batch from Sony.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

For sure, it's always possibility. However each disc that has been opened shows a completely different pattern. Also, from what I understand the 'glue' delaminating would leave something removable of some sort where rot is more of a reaction. I'm convinced it's 'Disc Rot' based on comparing examples to the remaining discs. That said, I'm not a scientist :). Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!!

@k7a

Жыл бұрын

@@TheRetroRecall I'm inclined to think it's a plastic defect, not because I know much of anything about disc rot, but because the problem looks to have affected the plastic specifically and not the label or metallic underside. If you look at the center of the disc, you can see where the plastic itself has gone all cloudy and weird. By my understanding, the disc rot people are talking about is a problem where the coating with the actual data degrades. I'd wager if you had a spindle of discs from that same batch, the plastic blank at the bottom would have the same defect. Crazy question, but have you tried any of them to see if they still work? I've run CDs through cheap resurfacers before and they also looked scuffed AF but read just fine, so I can't help but wonder.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

Hey @k7a, thanks for this info. I am still convinced (maybe I live in a bubble) that it is a rot of some sort due to the 'coating' being completely affected - even to the spindle. When reading through the Wiki site it states 'Disc rot is the tendency of CD, DVD, or other optical discs to become unreadable because of physical or chemical deterioration. The causes include oxidation of the reflective layer, physical scuffing and abrasion of disc, reactions with contaminants, ultra-violet light damage, and de-bonding of the adhesive used to adhere the layers of the disc together'. That alone covers many scenarios (including the debonding of the adhesive - similar to what @gttarus1 is stating). This is a very interesting topic that intrigues me. I am happy to be wrong of course... I just have this nagging feeling it is rot. I am going to try one of the discs to see what happens and will report back. Thanks for watching and commenting!!

@k7a

Жыл бұрын

@@TheRetroRecall Yeah, you're probably right, and I guess either way the point is it degraded without wear, which is always scary to think about with these sort of things. I back up everything for fear it might randomly happen to me but I've had pretty good luck myself so far. Would be awesome though if someone could one day put a bit of science into figuring out why it happens and which particular media is most at risk.

@PoweredByCNG

Жыл бұрын

@@TheRetroRecall One thing to consider is that Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs have a characteristic frosted hub, but this feature is only present on the label side and not the recording side. The frosted hub also has a serial number stamped onto it with the first digit representing year of production (i.e. "8" denotes a production year of 1998).

I hadn't heard of this either. It does happen in DVDs also. I keep a good selection of OEM OS disks and went to restore a Dell with Windows 8. Low and behold. The entire read data side had small bubbles all over it. Thankfully I was able to download the iso from MS. Still, not the same as a restore disk as they put back all the partitions, for troubleshooting.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

For sure. There are a lot of mixed reviews on this subject however regardless of the cause, if you want to maintain your data, you need to archive it before something happens to the media! :)

well as both a console and pc gamer Disc Rot is very concerning to early CD games. The Turbo Grafx 16/PCE and Sega CD are already showing some signs of degrading/falling apart due to how the disc where pressed. No game disc in my personal collection have suffered this fate. I can't say for certain but keeping disc sealed "regardless of where where you store them" let's humidity eat away at them more than disc that are open. Also there is another way to check to see if you are suffering from disc rot, and sadly it happened my old windows 95 install CD. Hold the disc up to light "lamp, celling light it doesn't matter". If you can see all the through the disc "with out the coating or notice tiny pinholes" there there are signs of the disc starting to degrade. The Windows 95 install disc 1/4 of the disc missing with looked like a small burn on reflective side.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this additional info and for sure its something to watch out for. I thought sealed would be better but your point makes sense. I do have a lot of media, so I need to start archiving it just in case.

@CecilTheDarkKnight234

Жыл бұрын

@@TheRetroRecall honestly it never hurts to back up everything so you can always grab the disc images/files you need later. I'll be honest since I started working on laptops on the past year and half it's been a slog. If not for the internet archive or dell "being really good at archiving their drivers" I would've been SOL.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

100%

Seems like probably a manufacturing issue with that particular set of discs.

@TheRetroRecall

5 ай бұрын

Definitely possible.

yes and the next stage is the media flaking off

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

It's a shame.

Thank you for video, very interesting. I think that is not a disk rot, because it is very different from pictures in google for "disk rot". More likely that is manufacturing issue.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

Hey, thanks for watching and your note - it's appreciated. I have researched images on Google and have seen similar ones for disc rot that line up to what I'm seeing in person. There are also others in the package not shown on camera that align with that as well. Again, unless sending to a laboratory, there will be no hard confirmation, however based on what I saw I believe it is :). Either way, this video brings awareness and generates interaction. Thanks again!

Must have been a manufacturing error!

@TheRetroRecall

10 ай бұрын

Possoble for sure. Others have also had issues.

I had disc rot on 3 marvel animated Blu-ray’s and 1 on Star Trek beyond on 4K that’s my only case of disc rot I was worried cause I moved my Blu-ray’s and DVDs were in bins and in the heat over night in summer on a truck but I checked everyone and was fine other that that’s all I had my experience with disc rot

@TheRetroRecall

5 ай бұрын

Yes, it's not fun. Fortunately I haven't experienced it that much and have started archiving my media.

I have CDs from the early 90 that are still working today with no problem. Music and game cd for my computer like my Kings Quest 5 and Ultimate Doom still work like a champ and my CD-Rs from my Richo 6200A (Rebranded as Hi-Val on the front but still has the 6200A sticker on the top surface) 2X CD Burner. Granted CD were mor expensive then but made from better materials. Now days they are more flimsy and scrach more easily due to (go figure like everything else) being made as cheaply as possible. Profits over Quality seems to be the model every big company wants to follow but than again I am ranting. Have a good one.

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

I think it varies from person to person with many factors including location and what brand was bought and when. I remember when Cdrs were $20 (CAD) each when they first came out... I still have those today. As time goes on, everything gets cheaper which worries me for the future. I mean today we use cloud storage or drives in RAID configurations to store data more so than cdr.. However it does happen from time to time :)

All my cd-r backups from 20 years a go are dead

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

:(

@2xtreem4u

Жыл бұрын

@@TheRetroRecall lost all my files from my teenage years

@TheRetroRecall

Жыл бұрын

That's very unfortunate. I really need to backup my stuff off of them so that doesn't happen.

I consider anything sony , the worst product ever made.

@TheRetroRecall

6 ай бұрын

Including hardware?