Originally Posted by
Oggy
Hi drcain,
Firstly, all the best in retrieving your photos. CD-R longevity and performance can vary massively, confused further with using certain pens and how the dye from the printed label can cause varying degrees of deterioration across the disc! As others have sadly found, CD-Rs are not a guaranteed, reliable backup.
You are absolutely correct in that buffing the bottom of a disc to remove scratches, is a completely different problem to an age related deterioration of the reflective layer. The only time I've managed to rescue a failing CD-R, which nine times out of ten couldn't even have the TOC read, was to copy it , and got very lucky.
Regarding the Pioneer, on ONE badly scratched CD (see post*11) this one example of this drive, gave better results than the one example of the other drives I tried. It also ripped two CDs with hidden first tracks, and two copy controlled discs, one of which I hadn't managed to previously rip.
The HP laptops drive, the HP TS-L633N, I tend to use if I've only got a few CDs to rip, and know they haven't got any sort of copy protection, as it gives multi 100s frame errors. However, occasionally it rips error free, on seemingly unmarked discs, that the Lite-On and now the Pioneer give a few errors on. I firmly believe that there is no one CD, DVD or Blu-ray drive that is the best for all drives - the depth and direction of a scratch and the subsequent problem for the laser, is never the same from disc to disc.
Deterioration of the reflective layer through time on CD-Rs and the very rare instances of bronzing, pin holes, or disc rot, is a different problem to a scratched disc, and as you have found, extremely difficult to overcome.
By some horrible coincidence, I've just attempted to rip a CD that looks slightly bronzed and has some nasty looking marks below the surface - not scratches. This may more accurately reflect the deterioration of your CD-R.
I tried this CD on three drives used in my previous post:-
Pioneer DVR-111DBK
HP TS-L633N
Lite-On LH-20A
I tried to rip the first track, and aborted after I had the number of frames that needed re-ripping, and how long it took to get to this stage.
Firstly the Pioneer, which took a bit of time to read the TOC. In 10m 50s gave 11846 errors!
The HP took 4m 25s, giving 1278 errors.
The Lite-On finished the first run before I had returned with coffee, but was on 678 frames with errors after 5 odd minutes. I ran this again and got 360 frames after 3m 2s. As this was so much better, I ran it a third time getting 547 errors in 3m 18s.
I haven't (and won't!) attempted to complete ripping the CD, but as you can see, the difference between the drives, on this one bronzed disc is large, and a little bit unpredictable.
From this one disc, you would consider the Lite-On to be the better drive, and before the recent rediscovery of the Pioneer, was my most used drive.
Just to show the unpredictable nature of scratched discs (other people's definition of Very Good, is clearly different to mine!), this is the result of the next disc I ripped:-
Lite-On on three attempts gave errors on track one. 126, 28 and 106 frames, but gave an AccurateRip after a couple of minutes.
The Pioneer and HP ripped first pass.
I may try some of my other drives on the bronzed CD, when I've got some spare time. I certainly don't expect a different drive to suddenly perform a miracle on a clearly deteriorated disc, but it will give information.
I repeat that this is only on one specific CD, with one sample of the drive with varying degrees of use. I don't know how repeatable this would be with a second or third make / model.
Luckily somewhere around 95% of my discs have ripped first pass without issues. YMMV!!