CD cleaning

kamal this is for scracthes ,can you suggest how to mantain CD,s regularly,quite a lot of CD,s of mine have got fungus and dust.thanks

Hi Mekr,
Re your query, plz follow this link:
A Fungus Ate My Data? :: MazPC :: Mazatlan, Mexico Computer Repair - English Spoken
Hope it helps.

I once faced a similar problem with a few Samsung CD-Rs, viz the reflective layer bubbling up.(Mfrg defect I think-8 out of 10 CDs had the bubbling prob, & they were labelled "Premium"quality !)
In such cases, hold the reflective side at an angle to the light : in a CD-R you can see till where the CD has been written.
If the bubbling is after the point till where data was written, then ,as I did, remove the bubbled portion & copy the data onto a better quality disc.
If the bubbling is smack in the middle of the data, use the CD as a coaster.
If there is no bubbling, see if you can gently remove the fungus using a soft cloth dipped in a mild soap solution.If successful, then copy the disc rightaway.
AND, as the guy suggests in the article, always keep your discs clean & in a good protective case.

Kamalji,
MANY MANY MANY thanks!!!!!!!!!!
Tried Brasso on 5 cds. All really old and scratched. 4 of them are now playing fine. So will repeat on the damn 5th one.
Really brilliant advice. Next time in Bbay join me for some somrus!!
Regards

Congrats !
Now promptly copy them onto good qlty CD-Rs;
rip them with EAC & burn the CD using the slowest writing speed your writer supports.

Hi,

I've been in this thread from the beginning ! So since Kamal was doing a excellent job I just listened to what he had to say and took notes !!

Anyways Kamal While I agree with your slower speed writing advice !! I don't think that ripping it in EAC then copying it is such a good idea !! I think its much better to copy the CD directly ( DISC TO DISC ) Via Nero's copy disc function or much better with Clone CD's copy disc function since Clone cd copies in RAW mode its not affected by the usual data read error's or data redundancies !! Please correct me if Am wrong !

Though the new headache is, In Nero it wouldn't write less then 16X if the writers max speed is 48-52X, I use one more and always burn at 1X speed !!

According to me,The any ripper be it EAC (though the best in class and free) is bound to lose some very small amount of data (read quality) when it converts .cda to wav (again if the original is XRCD or K2 cd with 100khz/20-24 bit master ( though I know the Redbook CD spec says 44.1Khz 16Bit ) ) then the wav will be of 44100/16 bit so the original signal will not be really transferred to the wav format ! also the CD TEXT data is lost when ripping and burning in EAC sometimes !

I've tried virtually all the softwares for burning ! I've also tried the so called up conversion softwares which up converts the basic 44.1Khz to 96 Khz and 16 to 24 Bit, Either PCM or dolby digital ! but found very few works !! most of them are bogus !!

Please do share your thoughts on this !!

Regards.

Kamal,what knowledge i have got from you on this matter i thank you and alsoon behalf or other readers of this forum ,kindly clarify what do you mean by radial cleaning,one while cleaning we move cloth from inside to edges in straight motion or we can move the cloth round and round on the recording side of CD,as CD,s are delicate i would like to clarify before commencing on the operation

Mekr, thx for your comments.
Radially means in a straight line from the center of the CD to the outer edge( like a radius of a circle), NOT round & round ,as you put it.

Soundsgreat, one has to remember that XRCDs/K2 CDs are Red Book CDs, with a 16 bit word length , that will play on any CD player, unlike HDCDs/SACDs.
The hi quality sound you get from XRCDs/K2 CDs(which are claimed by JVC to be the nearest to analogue sound/master tapes) are the result of special mastering & manufacturing techniques developed by JVC, which retain to a large extent the high quality of the 20/24 bit Masters in the 16 bit/44.1khz XRCDs/K2 CDs produced as a result of this special process.
As regards ripping/copying & burning CDs, I ysed to rely on Nero earlier, but now I use EAC for creating the image & Burrrn( which enables usage of very slow speed burning& is a very user friendly & accurate software for this purpose) for burning the CD.I have found that EAC with its iterative process for reading a CD yields an excellent image for burning, hence my recommendation.
My two cents worth !