Windows XP forum: Permanent markers on CD's

The National Institute of Standards has published a useful guide.

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/onepage.pdf

Note #2 in the DO list - use a non-solvent based felt tip pen. The MagicMarker brand, for example, is solvent based. It will, over time, degrade the plastic possibly leading to ruination of the metallic core. The Sharpie brand, for example, is non-solvent based. There may be others.

I only use a Sharpie brand marker. I buy the super-paks of 5 or 10 markers and leave them all over the house so I will be able to find one quickly no matter what room I am in.

Only slightly off your original question... Note #3 in the DON'T list - don't use those Neato stickon paper labels for any CD disk you want to keep. Over a long period of time, the adhesive on the label will degrade the plastic of the disk.

dw

I agree with all of the above. you can buy a marker pen for CDs for a couple of dollars. Labels are not only likely to degrade your CD but they can also wreck your CD player. These disks spin at incredible speed and can cause the label to be jettisoned into the bowels of your player.
Another golden rule don't let a ballpoint get anywhere near to your CDs as the pressure can kill the disk.

If you're set on using labels, put the label on the jewelry case and use a Sharpie on the CD. If the pictures are that precious, have multiple copies.

I call Bullcrap on this entire topic.

Sow me one confirmed example of these ''degraded Discs?''
The only way the marker will Burn through the top of the disc, through the metal layer, and damage the pitted side is with a soldering Iron.

Again I say, show me ONE, just ONE example.
In the time these discs will degrade naturally, the medium would never be technologically readable.
They said the same thing about floppies....''Oh, they'll wear out!''

Show me ANYONE still using floppies for important data storage.

It's all Crap.

For sure floppies are outdated for mass-media storage, but for pure computer and computer-like devices they are alive and well. I am in the show production industry and many of the professional grade lighting consoles use foppies for a variety of tasks - everything from saving shows to console operating systems to moving-light personalities.

For pure professionals, floppies will never die.

Back when I ripped my 600+ CD collection to mp3 I made two sets (about 50 CD-rs each set) of mp3 data discs. One to be stored as an archive set and one to travel with me as I was on the road about 300 days a year. I listened to them on a CD/mp3 player, as HD mp3 players at the time didn't have near the capacity to store the entire collection and my laptop then only had a 20GB HD. The archive set I marked with Sharpies. The travel set I made adhesive labels for, with artist & album info and album cover art. During the label making process, some of the labels had minor mistakes printed on them (like the album cover art images weren't in the same order on the label as the files for each album were on the disc). Two of those labels were already applied to the discs before the mistakes were discovered. For those two discs, I stored the ones with mis-printed labels as the archive copies and made corrected labels which I placed on the discs marked with Sharpies and put them in the travel set. Both sets used the same brand of blank media from two 50-packs purchased at the same time. Since I burned two copies of each disc as I went along, the first package of blanks were used for both the archive and travel copies of the first 25 discs in each set, and the second package provided the blanks for the second group of archives and masters in the set. The archive set has been stored in a dark, cool, dry place since that time, except for when I sometimes needed to copy a replacement disc for a damaged one in the travel set (usually due to scratches from dust and vibration, etc... or so I thought).
Recently I acquired a 160GB external Hard Drive and decided to transfer all the data files from the archive set onto the HD. Guess which discs were the only two in the entire archive set to experience read errors during the transfer? Just as most reports on the subject have noted, the data near the edge of the discs was the most degraded. Even when slowing the CD reader down to 1x, several of the final tracks on those two discs were unreadable, and I had to re-rip from the original CD's to complete the collection on my HD. I then checked randomly selected discs from the travel set (all with labels) that I don't use much anymore since my job now doesn't require the travel and found a good number of them with read errors near the edge also. While sunlight, humidity, scratches etc... may be used to explain the problems with the travel set, the two discs with adhesive labels in the archive set were never exposed to any of those environmental factors. The ONLY difference between those two and the other archived discs were the adhesive labels.

Thank you for the great information. There is a lot of confusion in determining the most reliable media to write to. This site really helped.

Do you know whether or not the information also applies to DVDs ?

Thnx

I fully agree that the quality of blank media plays an important role. Your post, and the link included, does provide a lot of good information. But one must be careful not to place too much creedance in the manufacturers code in the ATIP region, as it only indicates the manufacturer of the original stamper used to make the disc, not the manufacturer of the disc itself.

See http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-33 for more info.

The degradation is very slow and not easily noticed, so it won't show up for several years, and even then the error correction in the CD data encoding algorithm may resolve the errors in the early stages of degradation. Even the small amounts of alcohol and acetone solvents used in some markers and label adhesives will interact with the plastic and migrate through the layer over a period of years. If you are writing disks for near-term use, fine. But for long term archival storage of important data, don't use adhesive labels or solvent-based inks.

I cannot confirm if it still happens with CDs.
But back in 2001 I recall this happening to me a few times.
After the marker is on the CD for a while the shiny concentric circle pattern on the bottom of the disk starts to become all wobbly looking.

You eventually get this "Oil Spill" looking pattern all over the bottom of the disk. After that, parts of the top of the disk will begin to flake off. But the disk is unreadable long before the flaking begins.

Have the lightscribe products been rated? Pretty expensive still. Not sure which one to go for (if any). Familiar with HP & Lacie Products. Not sure about "Sager or BenQ.

Kathy

Magic markers are so so messy, sharpies con't look much better unless your going for that "look"
I ve found the Casio CD-50 thermal printer does a very nice job of lable making.
The end result is more "factory pressed" looking than anything else.
The fallback is, that you must use silver/silver cdrs/dvds. The blanks have aboslutly no manufacture marks on them to interfere with the print out. Hardly a fallback. The blanks are generally available online.

The main reason for data loss on my cdrs has been: sunlight, as destructive as stepping on it, or printing the lable on a manual typewriter, lol

What can I use to write on a CD-RW disc that is non-permanent and easily removed?

Cotton bud moistened with surgical spirit, it'll dissolve permanent markers no trouble, but you'll have to keep cleaning for a while to get rid of all the marker, then just let it dry off