Posted by Charles Russell on 11/24/06 18:04

NRen2k5 wrote:
> john wrote:
>
>> Some of the CDRWs I burned 7 years ago aren't being read by my current
>> (XP) computer.
>>
>> How can I help it identify them?
>
>
> Sorry for not answering the question (I see other have answered it well).
>
> But I should point out that this isn't what CD-RWs are meant for. They
> are meant for short-term storage. If you want to burn things for
> long-term storage, you should get some good CD-Rs from a good
> manufacturer such as Taiyo Yuden.


Are you sure CD-R's last longer than CD-RW's? My understanding is that
the data on a CD-R (or DVD-R) is burnt into a dye layer, whereas the
data on a CD-RW (or DVD-RW) is melted into an alloy layer. As a
chemist, I would expect most dyes to fade with time. Hunting on the web
for advice on archiving, I only find suggestions such as to keep disks
out of direct sunlight, store on edge, etc. without hard numbers on what
lifetime to expect for any media. So for important files I tend to keep
one copy on CD-R, one on DVD-R and one on DVD-RW. (I'm risk-averse.)

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