# How dangerous is overburning to your cd-rw drive?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-overburning-to-your-cd-rw-drive/115549>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 23, 2002, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-overburning-to-your-cd-rw-drive/115549 "2002-06-23T10:48:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-overburning-to-your-cd-rw-drive/115549/1 "2002-06-23T10:48:57Z")

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Google search turns up a zillion sites, they all say overburning may be harmful to your drive, but they never go into any detail. If I try to overburn 2-5 extra megabytes on a 700 megabyte cd-r, what are the _odds_ that it will damge my unit?

I am using:

[This model](http://www.mynix.com/en/products/desktop_acc/cdrw/btc16x10x40.html) CD-RW drive. The manual simply says that it supports overburning. That’s it, no more detail.

Nero Burning Rom v. 5.5.7.2, which supports overburning.

Durabrand 700 MB CD-Rs as media.  
Also, if I do overburn, will I be less likely to have errors if I burn at a lower speed than the drive’s top speed?

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**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-overburning-to-your-cd-rw-drive/115549/2 "2002-06-23T16:56:40Z")

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    - [www.cdrfaq.org](http://www.cdrfaq.org) tells pretty much everything there is to know about burning CD-R’s of any type. - DougC

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**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2002, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-overburning-to-your-cd-rw-drive/115549/3 "2002-06-24T01:29:49Z")

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Yes, been there, read that. Some good technical info, but nothing about _how_ risky it is to your cd-rw drive.