> Okay. So does anyone have any brands to recommend because > I'm keen to back-up some stuff and a cd writer is all I > have.
I couldn't find one in Christchurch. Imation CD-Rs are probably not much better than Warehouse, if any, and that's almost all you get. There is Verbatim, last time I looked it had the same manufacturer codes as Imation (MCC, Mistubishi Chemical Corp). Sony is common around town, the 700MB ones with a silvery top surface. In daylight (out of the sun) it goes yellow in weeks, in the dark cupboard in 6-9 months (this is from experience). And they want me to trust the data on *that*? ROTFL... If anyone finds anything better let us all know. The first box of CD-R I bought in 1995, which must be using the first-generation proven-to-be-dodgy dye technology are still all fine. They were made before manufacturing standards went through the floorboards and cost $20 each. DVDs are probably at that stage now. Verbatim DVDs seem to be ok, all the ones I've seen have meticulous recording surfaces and none has yet failed me before/during/after burning. No long-term experience though. As I said, your best bet is to record onto 2 different types of CD-R and copy to new media every 2 years at the latest. Record decent checksums onto the disks so you can easily find out whether there is any corruption. I always save my ISO md5 sums too. I made scripts for all that a while ago. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
