Thoughts on resurfacing Turbo CD games

[motdelbourt]

People were commenting that CDs will out live you. While that depends on your age, for younger people that is not necessarily true.

Could you please link some sources?

[Ji-L87]

Hm...I bought two music CDs earlier this year that aren't very scratched at all (near mint, I would say) but both exhibited playback problems. Guessing, I'd say these are from the early 90s. I took one of them, a Sailor Moon CD to the local GAME store to see if a resurfacing would make any difference (this disc refused to play at all, in anything that could play a CD). After that I could actually be played back (first track not really playing well but still) but it costed too much for me to do it again with the other CD, which actually plays well after the first two tracks.

[8bitForLife]

well a couple of my games got scratchs on them from my rx its totally resurfacable. I am not a slob or anything just accidents  from me opening the top of the system before it was done spinning.  I have been thinking of sending my 4 games to http://www.ebay.com/itm/271009578318?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 its an ok price.

If you open a Duo while it's still spinning the only thing that will get scratched is the hub, and there isn't any data there.

Are you saying the discs won't play now? Or are these scratches just cosmetic? If the game still plays I wouldn't change a thing. If the games don't play properly then something else happened besides opening the door when the disc was playing.

it was a scratch in a circle all the way around the disc. It could of been pots or the laser calibration but I'm not sure as I dont know anything technical wise about the turbob. It would have trouble loading some games others the redbook would ether not play or take the laser very long time to start to read the track. I burned rayxanber III for shits and giggles to check it out and it wouldn't load that game for anything and I tried burning it with different programs and speeds but it wouldnt work but would play in my pc with magic engine just fine. I sent it to thesteve to fix any problems and mod it for a region switch and I think hes doing component to it. So hopefully when when i get it back all cd reading problems are fixed.

[soop]

CDs don't wear out. Just don't destroy the poor things by leaving them laying around out of their cases, setting it down on the read side, allowing dirtbags to handle your stuff, etc.

Well, I got Forza 4 brand new, and it was in my 360 the entire time before it f*cked up, and straight from the drive for the first time, it was scratched.  That wasn't actually the issue, as I had it polished and it was still f*cked.

But yeah, if a DVD can get scratched just from being in the drive, then I believe they're not exactly safe, even if the 360 is a different kettle of fish to a Super CD system

[SignOfZeta]

CDs don't wear out. Just don't destroy the poor things by leaving them laying around out of their cases, setting it down on the read side, allowing dirtbags to handle your stuff, etc.

Well, I got Forza 4 brand new, and it was in my 360 the entire time before it f*cked up, and straight from the drive for the first time, it was scratched.  That wasn't actually the issue, as I had it polished and it was still f*cked.

But yeah, if a DVD can get scratched just from being in the drive, then I believe they're not exactly safe, even if the 360 is a different kettle of fish to a Super CD system

So you are saying that the XBox scratched the disc? That's pretty f*cking lame. I do know of an issue with PS2s doing this to CD (blue) games, but I didn't know 360s did it too.

[MottZilla]

The older CD-ROM systems *should* be less likely to scratch up the discs for you.

Anyway, CDs with proper handling should last a long time. But shit happens, and eventually unavoidable issues may arise and cause the disc to no longer be readable. It should hopefully be a long way off. But I wouldn't make any plans to be playing your Turbo CD on your 95th birthday just yet.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm pretty sure it's completely impossible for a CDROM2 to scratch a disc unless the thing falls apart while playing, and even then a 1x drive can only do so much.

[vestcoat]

Mottzilla, I hear what you're saying and it's good to be cautious, but your fears are a bit extreme.

As a sound engineer, avid video gamer, and a bit of computer dork, I've yet to hear a complaint about CD players or CD-ROMs wearing out CDs (other than Soop's post about DVD's in an XBOX). Can you find individual anecdotes and freak occurrences? Yes. And there are certainly some faulty players and poorly made devices, but it's not a failure of CD's or optical technology.

CD Bronzing is only a problem with music discs made at one factory over the course of five years.

Disc rot exists, but it's not a widespread problem. If it were, sites would be devoted to tracking it like collectors do with poorly made LDs. Disc rot is a problem with CD-Rs and LDs, not replicated CDs.

You keep waving your arms about CDs wearing out, but there's no evidence of a problem on the horizon. CDs have had ample time to exhibit disc rot and they haven't. Other than bronzed CDs from the Blackburn plant, there don't seem be any other large-scale manufacturing mistakes in the West. I have yet to see disc rot on a glass-mastered CD. Gamers come here every day with broken hardware, but we haven't heard about CDs damaged by anything other than abuse. Until I see concrete evidence or frequent reports, I'll worry about my hardware first, cartridges second, and CDs last.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, your CDs are far more likely to be destroyed by your house burning down or something like that than bit rot.

Most of us here have seen a SHIT LOAD of CDs in our lives. I started collecting CD in 1991 and I have quite a few older than that (old enough to have "emphasis bits"). I own hundreds of audio CDs, a few hundred games, and then there all the stupid discs like driver CDs, OS install discs, etc. Then there are all the other people I know who are much more avid collectors, people with literally thousands of CDs, and I'm pretty sure I can't think of a single case of a CDROM or audio CD crapping out.

CD is a very mature technology. There are thousands of stamping plants on six continents operating in all sorts of conditions and at all sorts of budgets, from ISO compliant clean rooms on Switzerland to shacks with no plumbing in Nigeria. If it was in any way a problem-prone technology we'd be swimming in the shit by now since BILLIONS of CDs have been pressed since 1982.

What has crapped out for sure; DVD, HDDVD (a somewhat large percentage, actually) Laserdisc, and usually (always?) the double sided types. Are there two sided Bluray discs? If so, I wouldn't at all be surprised to hear of them rotting.

Laserdisc is the most rot prone optical medium by far, and even there rotters are pretty rare. If you only buy 90s LDs from Japan you may have to have 1000 discs before you see your first rotter. If you bought a lot of Discovision...you are pretty familiar with rot, but that's because those discs were made before rot was even discovered, and before safeguards were put in place.

[wilykat]

In my life I've had only 1 bad CD and 1 bad DVD

Cd was ruined by cat pissing on it.  The ammonia content ate through the label side and turned most of the silver layer almost black.

DVD was one of the early dual layer, a few were affected by imperfect process when pressed dual layer were made commercially (late 1990's) but it's still rare.

Neither of them got "ruined" while in a player.

[soop]

FYI, we did go through this whole thing a while back (probably more than once) - here's my topic you can read through, there's some good stuff in there. http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=11394.0

[kazekirifx]

If you only buy 90s LDs from Japan you may have to have 1000 discs before you see your first rotter.

I agree it's rare, but not quite that rare. My collection is probably a couple hundred LDs at most; I'm sure I don't have 1000. I have 3 rotters in my collection that I know of, and all are 90s LDs from Japan. I know that one of them is a known frequent rotter. Not sure about the other two.