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Old March 17th 06, 09:58 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
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Default Life of a CD Rom Disk

Hi,

From time to time, I come across an article about CD roms, etc.
What I have learned so far, CD-R (I use) is better than CD-RW for long
term storage of important data. Also, how they are stored can have
a bearing on their "life".

I keep CD roms in a dark cool location. To test the integrity of my
"burned" CD roms, I use "Finder" (search engine) I downloaded from
www.simtel.net. I "search" for a non-existant text pattern such as "i don't
exist" in order to get "Finder" to read through every file on the CD rom as a
way to check for corrupt data. Note: "Finder" has reported read errors on
some of my floppy disks. So far, no read errors were reported. However, I
started burning CD roms about 4 years ago.

Is the integrity of commercial CD roms better than those I "burn" at home?
How long can we expect to keep our CD roms, assuming they are stored in a good
environment, before we begin to encounter corrupt data?

Thanks in advance, Brad

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