I just got a response from the person, and no, there are no stick-on labels, only CD-R "friendly" markings inside the inner circle. I'm beginning to think we are indeed seeing bit-rot, while we've yet to see one of these discs in our office, that would be my initial guess. Certainly concur with the group's assumptions about digital files going on a variety of media, we use LTO and only recommend CD-R for access copies for exactly this reason. Please keep any more ideas coming, I've been forwarding them along and I know they appreciate it. John [log in to unmask] On Aug 5, 2013, at 10:40 AM, Donald Clarke wrote: > I was referring to the kind that you stick on yourself. I never did that but a lot of people did and it turns out to be a bad idea, so nobody does it nowadays that I am aware of. I would have thought that once chemical damage is done it would be permanent, but I was just recently told by one of my collector colleagues that he successfully has removed a label, soaking and gently scraping and then using Windex or whatever to remove the goo, and the CD would play again. I have never done that either but I would try it with a valuable CD before throwing it away. > I have always written on CDRs with a Sharpie and never had any problems with that. > > Donald Clarke > > On Aug 5, 2013, at 10:46 AM, James Roth wrote: > > Hello Mr. Spencer, > > I just read [below] that the labels on CDs can cause problems. > Are you referring to ready-made print CDs or the ones where we buy labels and press them on? > > Thanks. > Ben Roth > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Donald Clarke > Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 10:30 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] CD-R help request > > Do they have labels on them? That would explain it, the chemical stickum causing apparently terminal problems, but I have heard of people soaking and washing CDs to get the labels off successfully. > > Donald Clarke > > On Aug 5, 2013, at 10:07 AM, John Spencer wrote: > > Collective wisdom of the ARSC list, > > I got a message from an archivist friend, and while we haven't tried anything ourselves, I thought I would post his message to the list to see if anyone had any ideas for recovery. > > Any help is greatly appreciated and I will forward it to him. > > Thanks in advance, > John Spencer > [log in to unmask] > -------------------------------------------------------- > I'm beginning to have some problems with many of the CD-R's that are in the collection I work with. Most of theseCD-R's were made from analog sources [we thankfully still have them] over 10 years ago, long before we had any sort of digital storage system. These CD-R's suffer from a variety of jitter/glitches when exported into the computer and many of them skip or hang up when played in a CD player. They were all created using a stand-alone Sony CDR-W33 burner and the CD-R stock was JVC/Taiyo Yuden. > > My current platform is Mac. I've tried a couple of different CD drives, thinking that may make a difference, but no dice. I've tried copying some of them through iTunes using its built-in error correction. I've downloaded MAX-a CD ripper application for Mac that uses a version of cdparanoia-I've also tried Pillage, so far nothing has made any noticeable difference. > > If you have any thoughts on ways to productively do this, or know of anyone who has successfully dealt with a problem like this, please let me know.