At what point do you consider degraded discs reburn before coaster material?

Blank Media
#1

Well this is something that is really open to opinion im sure but I wanna know what everyone thinks. Recordable optical storage degrades, some more than others depending on quality. At what point do you consider the old burn garbage and reburn it to keep your data/movies safe?

What do you used to test your media and what level does it have to reach for you to want to reburn to keep from losing data? (I.E. scan a burned disc in cddvd speed that you made a year or 2 ago, and decide you should reburn it because it has xxxpifs, or because of xxx pies, xxx jitter, etc. Maybe a scan in kprobe, however)

What is your personal deciding factor?
What do you look for first that sets it in stone to you (besides the obvious crc errors or set top boxes refusing to play)
Do you have different deciding factors for movies/data?

Why do I ask? I see alot of varying opinions from reading/searching and im finding now that media I burned on years ago was very poor quality, I dont wanna reburn everything if I can help it so I wanna average out what other people consider too much as my starting point.

#2

Simple rule of thumb - don’t wait until a disc is barely readable you have to cuss at it and hurl it across the room for it to finally decide to read :slight_smile:

Run a transfer test in CDSPEED and look for a smooth curve, take note of any spikes and fluctuations.

Also you want to avoid PO failures, don’t wait for it to happen… KPROBE your disc and look at the PIF individual count… If you notice that they are getting much worse than your initial scan, with individual values that have gone up, say consistently 3-4 across the disc or even more, then I would not take any chances. I am not sure there is a definite rule as I’ve seen some very bad scans with perfectly readable disc… personally I would not take a chance.

Now why don’t you post your scan for people to see, it will be easier to determine if you need to worry or not… Personally I would take into account a transfer test + PIF maximums.

#3

I’d agree with that…better to be safe than sorry.

My standards can vary depending on what’s on the disc, though…if it’s movies, then I can afford to wait til scans/TRTs show the disc to be unreadable, as I’ll have the originals to reburn from. If it’s data, then I scan the discs regularly to see if values have risen. I also keep two sets of backups.

#4

I dont really have any individual scans to be posting up per say, but I have about 50-75 discs im going to have to run through and scan which im not looking forward to (purchased ritek g04 media a long time ago but since I found the forum ive seen the light and now have all new tyg02 discs)

I wanted to avoid reburns as long as possible since im broke. A stack of tys, ink for printing a label, and finding good label images ive deleted half of all over again is not worth it to me unless I absolutely have to.

So scanning pifs if the maximum peaks over 3-4 alot its safe to say reburning the disc would be a good idea?

I know its open to interpretation since it can vary from drive, drive to media compat., media qual, etc. Just need a general idea because up until a few weeks ago I never used cdspeed or anything like it on my burns. I know what all the numbers mean by definition but I dont know the significance or impact of them (example what makes a peak pif or total pie start to matter, etc) and I’m trying to get a better idea, what better way then ask people how much they personally consider as too much.

#5

I wouldn’t worry about a few spikes or a small area with individual PIFs above 4, as long as there are no po failures - What I would be concerned with is rising values over time and the overall spread across the disc. If the disc has a clean kprobe scan and with time I notice the entire disc is spread with PIFs with constant values rising I would play it safe - Each person has their own set of rules regarding this. Some peoplea re more cautious like me others will wait until it’s too late :smiley:

Do you have any RITEK G05 discs handy ? You might want to scan these on a regular basis… :smiley:

#6

I have some older not so good discs MAM, Professional, Ritek, Bulkpaq even. All those i backed up without testing all. Those i tested looked bad and i lost some discs (unrecoverable). Now most is on TY discs and i just wait and see :wink:

Basically i back up important data 5-10 times on various discs so i’m not that scared of degrading discs. If i get a feeling somethings bad i back up again :slight_smile:

#7

Just out of curiosity, what are the discs that you lost to unrecoverable data ? Can I take 1 lucky guess ? :slight_smile:

#8

If you did not scan the original discs, then start by scanning all of them now. Save the scans and compare them to repeat scans in about 3-4 months. If they change much at all, replace them. Any scan today that is marginal - replace the disc. You can always worry about the labels later, but protect your stuff today.

There were plenty of Ritek G04 batches that were quite good if burned well. But do not trust them at all if the scans are not better than average.

#9

DON’T use labels on DVDs, they cause alot of problems (on DVDs). If you were talking about printable discs, that’s another story and that’s ok.

#10

heh, thats what I meant, I actually purchase printable media not labels.