I just got a CD burner (iomega zip cd 650) and I was wondering if putting labels on burned CDs is a good idea. I have some games a friend copied for me a few years ago and she put paper labels on them and they are peeling off now. I don’t even want to put them in my cd-rom with flakey, peeling, labels. So what is the best way to label all these cds I’m making now? Can I write on them? I know I am going to mix them up if I don’t mark them.
Any other cd burning tips & tricks welcome…I am really new at this.
You can write on them with felt marker. Many brands provide label space.
Peace
I have put labels on homemade CD’s and peeling and playability have not been problems at all. I only started making CDs in July, so long-term… I’m not sure. I use them mainly in my car’s CD player and in my computer’s DVD-ROM drive, which is slot-loading like a car CD player. I would think that that kind of loading mechanism would be the likeliest to be a problem if the labels had a tendency to peel.
The labels I use (“CD STOMPER” is the brand name of the little device that helps you center the label on the disc) are apparently not coated like regular inkjet paper, so colors don’t come out as vividly as I would like. But they stick really well and have shown no signs of peeling. Many of them sat in my hot car during the day in August and September.
I have read other people (probably on this board) who said some kinds of labels, if not properly centered, cause problems because they throw off the tracking of the data stream by making the CD “wobble” as it spins. But I have never observed this.
I merrily labeled CDs for years with laserlabels (Avery, etc.) with no problems, but I did notice lately that the blanks containers carry admonitions to NOT put labels on them. I’m WAGging (sp?) that the concern is about labels that may come off or start to and mess up the works in the drive.
I’ve got some with laserlabels that are 5+ years old and have not had problems.
As well as the previously mentioned use of “Stomper” which is a good labeling system, be aware that not all CD’s are made to the same standard. It is a “get what you pay for” situation wit blanks.
I buy cheap ones for most of my burning because it’s recoverable data or game images so no big deal. But for essential files I use higher quality media. The difference?
Cheap media has a thin layer of reflective surface on the top of the disk (where you would put the lable. This stuff is either glued or sprayed on to a blank plastic disk. This stuff can be scratched or peeled off easily and is very affected by heat. So labels would come off and take your silver stuff along with it, thus ruining the CD.
The expensive stuff is usually two half-thickness clear plastic disks with the chrome/silver stuff sandwiched in-between and the edges (inner and outer) fused togeather. This stuff is a lot mor sturdy.
If you are paying .25 per disk you are buying cheap stuff and it isn’t as sturdy as the stuff that sells for 2.00$ a piece.
Thanks for the replies. 
I got 50 free disks when I bought the drive, so that’s what I’m using. It sounds like the risk is minimal so I’ll probably use the Avery labeling software that came with it.
Bo
The warnings on CDs are primarily for regular stick-on labels, not full CD labels. These can cause the disk to be weighted wrong. The real worry, though, is that you’ll want to re-label the disc at some time, and will peel the label off, which will ruin the disc. I only label my audio CDs, but I’ve labeled every audio CD I’ve made (about 80), and absolutely 0 have cause problems, or started to peel. Some of these go back to 1997. They have no increased error rate, compatability, or wear. They work great, and look fantastic. I use the Neato CD labels, and they work very well. The high-gloss ones look absolutely fantastic.
Jman
Okay, the deal with labelling CDs is thus. Possibly unlike regular CDs, CDRs operate by having the reflective surface be the top layer, while the lower layer is made up of a dye. Your burner burns/melts the dye so that lasers that read the CD reflect off of the underside of the top layer. When this top layer flakes off, as it sometimes will with cheaper somewhat generic CDRs (the type with just a silver or gold top, not the plastic printed tops), you can see right through the CD, and so will the lasers.
To a greater or lesser extent, this is where the labels come in. Labeling your CD saves the top side from the random wear and tear (such as scratches and the like) that will normall occur with CDs, so in this way having them is a good thing. OTOH, if the label starts peeling off, it’s not inconceivable, or rare, that it would pull off the reflective layer of the disc with it (usually if the label’s falling off, it’d be a sign of shoddy adhesive, so it shouldn’t matter too much).
All in all, I’d advocate labelling them. As for the quality of the labels themselves, CD Stomper - and probably other companies - have glossy labels, which are pretty much the same paper as glossy inkjet paper, and yield better colors, resolution, and overall feel to the disc. They’re a bit more pricey, of course, but can be found for a good price at CDRoutlet.com, where it’s about $15.99/pack, as opposed to $25/pack at most retail outlets (YMMV).
Hope this helps - happy burning.
Love this thread. I’ve got the same burner as Boscibo and the Stomper.
little labels? They unbalance the cd. Also don’t use dvd’s that have them.
I use a Sharpie, even though the sharpie folks say not to, but I think thats just for certain types of cds. You can get a marker specificially for using on cds.
Those big round labels should be alright. But once again, only if they have a perfect alignment.
KKBattousai, just so you know, the reflective layer is the label side on all CDs. That’s why damage to the top will destroy the data, but scratches to the bottom are repairable. You are also incorrect about how CD-Rs are read. THe laser does not poke a hole in it. The dye is on the reflective surface, exactly like an aluminum CD, except it has grooves into it, so the laser can follow the spiral. Anyway, when in contact with the laser, the dyed reflective layer simply changes color. The spot where the laser hits is then dark, and reflects no light.
Most people don’t know this, but the pits and lands in a CD are not the 1s and 0s…it’s the EDGES of the pits and lands, i.e. the transition between the two, that is a zero. whether the laser is in a land or a pit, it reads both as a 1, since light is reflected back to the sensor. At the boundary, the light scatters and a 0 is recorded. On a CD-R, the dark spots are written as the boundaries of the pits/lands would be on the normal CD.
Jman