>One useful tip is to keep an old slow drive around. I have a x2 speed that > lives in the Mac 7600 that we use as a router/firewall. I've found that if > you can't read a disk in that drive it's almost certainly lost. It's worth > trying a suspect disk in several machines, since their abilities vary.
Technology may have improved on this, and I can't recall where didi I read som tie ago, that one of the foolproof startegies for ARCHIVAL CD's , this is the redundant and backup disks of our data should NOT be recorded any faster than 4x for both accuracy of registration AND backwards compatibility with equipments, meaning all new brands of CD players and Burners wll read a 4X disk , but not all of the "old" would be able to read disks recorded at 32X. As much as we may love the comfort of burning a CD in about 3 minutes at 32X, perhaps it is fine for delivery and inmediate use, but may be we have to accomodate some 15 minutes of our lives and burn archival data at slower speeds. I go as slow as 2X and am glad to report that so far , I have not lost a single file . Use those 15 minutes for a muscle stretch, some phone calls and a cup of tea ( in case you don't use coffee as part of your digital workflow). Care must also be taken regarding the inks used to wrote on the CD's since many chemicals from different brands of pens are dangerous to plastic materials of the CD, affecting data in the long term. Best reccomendation so far is to only write on the inner , transparent circle, although some makers( Maxxell) insist on their products to be effective and harmless for this purpose there is this CDNet review that I find most useful to check info on CD care. <http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1091-8-8020643-1.html?tag=st.cn.sr1.ss r.hw_cdr> All the best. Jorge Parra APA/ASMP www.jorgeparra.com =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
