DVD-R>Gone Bad?

[DVD-BLUES]

I have both Maxell and Ritek G04 DVD-R blank media that is probably 4 years old and has been stored in a dark closet. After burning the drives can't read them or says your disc should be cleaned. I thought maybe my burner was fried. I bought some new Maxell (Prodisc) and they worked just fine. Can these discs be bad just from sitting around?

[ntscuser]

Don't know about Maxell but Ritek = absolute cr*p! All mine went bad just a few months after being burned

[biviray]

Had the same problem with Ritek. Lucky I found an old Pioneer dvr-109 that would read them and copied to ty's.

[bevills1]

Which drives can't read them? Not reading burned -R media is a pretty common problem for NEC drives. For details on NEC drive -R issues see http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=209168.

[oldandinthe way]

This are old blank media? Or media that was written 4 years ago?

Yes blank media can go bad. Yes some media don't have far to go. But also there are plenty of older drives which are not up to modern quality standards. Your BTC DVDwriter is in that category.

Your system is also on the slow side and your hard disk small. This can also contribute to inferior burns.

Lots of possible explanation, little chance of finding the truth. Go with what works for you, but I wouldn't be surprised if your written Prodisks also show problems.

[hech54]

The only discs I've had become unreadable were Princo(of course)...every single one of my Ritek/Ridata discs are going strong...and I've been using them since I bought my Philips DVDR985 DVD Recorder....and that came out in 2002.

[DVD-BLUES]

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes , these were unburned discs that went bad. The drive that couldn't read the burned discs was the same drive that I burned them on. I also tried playing them in my Toshiba DVD rom in the same computer with the same results. I threw the last of my Riteks out. Which brand is the most reliable-Verbatim, TY or others?

[jman98]

Unburned discs of any make will eventually go bad. I don't remember how long it takes for this to happen, but eventually it will happen. Unburned discs can't be stored forever. It was a surprise to me to find this out, but I remember reading it earlier in the year.

Verbatim and TY are both excellent brands. I'd buy whichever is cheaper or easier for you to get. I've used DVD+R and DVD-R of both brands and I think they're all excellent. However, if you're going to deal with +/-RW discs, you have to buy Verbatim. TY doesn't make any DVD+/-RW discs and no dual layer discs of any kind. For dual layer burning, you must use only Verbatim DVD+R DL discs or you will likely have problems. I experimented briefly with Verbatim DVD-R DL discs. I had no quality issues with the discs, but I think the whole DVD-R DL format is bogus because of what the DVD-R guys had to do to make it work at all, but that's a long story I'll spare you. I don't recommend the DVD-R DL discs at all.