On Sunday, August 8, 2004, at 12:52 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'll consider
trying maybe one different brand of CDs, but I can't afford to try tons
of them or go top-of-the-line. Can you suggest a brand that's better than
Staples maybe, but not too expensive either? I only want the drive to
work so I can back up my data with it. That's all, I promise!
Yes, but how long to you want your backups to be readable? Don't write on the surface of the disk with a sharpie, or use those huge sticker labels (even the ones for CDs) on them, the solvents in the in/adhesive will get into the plastic and shift the dye and then you are sorry sooner than later..
;-) I'm not cutting music CDs or teaching any classes/giving lectures, and I don't need for other people's drives to be able to read any CDs I burn. I'm the only one who'll be using it.
That's what you say now :) but IIRC you have some classic macs kicking around still, right- what about when you want to use your CD burning capability to put data on disks for those guys? Make a bootable system CD?
Anyway you don't have to buy 200CD spindles; if you look around you can get little 5 packs or singles. I'd go for something thats the darkest blue color (Azo dye) you can find, to start with. Of course the packages don't usually tell you what dye they use, but try and look and find out if you can. Look for Verbatim ones this color, they used Azo at one time. I had a ton of these that I got very cheaply, and used with my ancient Yamaha CDR-100 forever. Or see if you can find some Kodak Gold, but they are not common (they aren't Azo but phthalocyanine).
Phthalocyanine dye and Azo dye I like the best. See <http://www.silverace.com/dottyspotty/issue12.html>
for a short summary. If you want more, be sure to google using the dye names, there's a lot of general crap out there about media that doesn't really say much. If the article doesn't mention a dye type, it's not good enough :)
I have a external portable SCSI (walkman size) Ricoh CD-RW that might be from the same era of -RW as your Smart-n-Friendly and it can't burn cheap -R disks very well. But it is flawless with the Verbatims.
HTH. The media really does make a big difference.
If would be nice if you could figure out how to test your drive on a known good cable, etc. too. And double check the termination...
Brian
--
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