On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 14:45 -0700, Cameron L. Spitzer wrote: > I make a lot of Knoppix disks because the Green Party here > gives them away. I get CD drives used or salvage or surplus, > all kinds and ages. Over time I collected nine drives that > stopped working: some wrote bad disks, others got read errors. > Took the cases off and cleaned the lenses carefully with > aqueous isopropyl "rubbing" alcohol on cotton swabs. > Eight of the nine work perfectly now. Try it. > The key is to remove the extra alcohol before it dries and > leaves a residue. Use a wet swab and then a dry one.
Interesting. Now I know why I have been keeping those CD burners that work only half the time. > Note, even a perfectly good brand new CD-RW drive will write > bad CDs if you burn at full speed. The maximum writing speed > on modern CD blanks is very optimistic. Try burning at half > the automatically detected speed, or 16x, whichever is slower. > You will get a much higher yield. Your disks will be readable > in marginal drives that can not read disks burned at full speed. Before I learned this, I had some very annoying experiences with CDs! > Also, don't waste your time with CD-RW media. I have tried > several brands and none erases well. Second burn yield is > under 50%. Third burn is near zero. Just for the record, I have never bought CD-RWs, but I have collected a few (about 20) used ones. The ones I have can be written at max 4x speed, which is annoying. However, I have had very little trouble with them. I agree that they should not be used for any critical data. I use them only for testing/temporary burning. Isn't it called "stuck bits" that CD-RWs have after several burns? Oh, and supposedly CD-RWs will last much longer than regular CDs. Light causes the dye in regular CDs to deteriate, but that takes much longer with the dyes in CD-RWs. (Okay, now everyone can pick that apart... I've just "heard that" from someone.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
