I have here a homemade music CD. I’m told that the music on it is quite beautiful, but I have no firsthand knowledge of this, because the CD is unplayable. A music CD player doesn’t do anything with it, and when I try to put it in my computer, it churns for a second or two and then spits it right back out.
The problem appears to be the label. It was cut out by hand out of relatively thick paper and then glued using an unknown adhesive onto a standard burnable CD (I don’t know the precise type of CD, but I can make out the number 700, 6X, a word that ends in -able, and a warning “Do not put into direct sunlight. Write with special soft marker pen only.” around the edges, where the label doesn’t cover). Especially messy is the hole in the middle of the label, where it looks like they just put the label on over the hole and then poked something through and tore a hole through it.
So I want to remove the label from the CD, and then copy it over to something else. But of course, I don’t want to damage the disc when I do this. What’s my best bet?
I’d soak it in water to soften it up to the “falling apart” pulpy stage and then rub it off. (Like manson1972 said earlier.) That would leave the adhesive layer, which (if you’re lucky) is the conventional label contact adhesive stuff that usually either rubs off as well (with a bit of finger friction) or maybe lifts off with another adhesive (like clear adhesive tape will often do). (If this is a CD-R, the protective top layer over the data layer should survive having the adhesive stripped off it, but YMMV. I’m pretty chicken about that kind of thing and would probably just try to rub the adhesive off.)
Of course your best bet is to get another copy of the music from the same source. The data layer on a CD is a very thin layer of foil at the top and anything that you do has a darn good chance of damaging it (including soaking it in water.)
Also, the extremely slow speed rating of 6x and the “-able” at the end makes me think it is a CD rewritable, which have always had lower compatibility than write-once CD-Rs. The label might not be the problem.
I’d be very careful with attempting to scrub off the label. As Darren Garrison says, if you damage the reflective film on that side, the disc will be permanently unreadable. I’m also not sure how the label would be preventing the disc from working. I don’t see how that could be, unless the problem is just the fragments of the label that are extending into the center hole. I would first try just trimming those back with an Xacto knife or something similar so that the center hole is clear.
Without knowing what the adhesive is, you’ll have to guess a bit about what will soften it.
WD-40 is not likely to harm the CD, but I find that vegetable oil (olive oil, canola oil, etc.) works almost as well and won’t harm any plastic surface. This is how I take price labels off of plastic objects, like CD covers. Finish up with mild soap and water to remove the oil.
It MAY be worthwhile to try a hair dryer on it to see if the adhesive loosens. Be careful and try not to get it any hotter than you absolutely have to. I’ve done this with self-stick adhesive labels that were applied off-center and it has worked for me most of the time. Remove any remaining adhesive with vegetable oil, followed by soap.
I’ve washed many, many CDs and DVDs with soap and water over the years and never had a problem with any of them. I’m fairly sure the foil is embedded in the plastic and not just sitting there on top waiting to be damaged by everything that runs across it.
As for the OP, I see he’s putting it in a computer CD drive. I’d suggest a standard CD player. IME, they’re considerably more robust and probably won’t have a problem with a label that’s simply too heavy/thick. I’ve had boomboxes that didn’t even blink when I stacked two CDs on top of each other.
I don’t actually know that the speed is 6X; whatever was immediately before the 6 was covered by the label, so that could say “16X” or “36X” or something. And if it were just a matter of poor compatibility, I’d expect my computer to give an error message of some sort, not just spit it out promptly.
Unfortunately, getting another copy from the original source isn’t an option, either, since my mom got this disc on a trip to Uganda, and while she enjoyed her visit, I don’t think she wants to plan another one just to get some tunes.
It sounds like cleaning up the hole in the label and soaking it in some sort of oil are both relatively safe options, which won’t make matters worse even if they don’t work. I’ll try both of those.
That was the first thing that Mom tried, and it was only when it didn’t work that she gave it to me. She’d previously had problems with a different disc (also purchased during her world travels) that couldn’t be read quickly enough to play in real time (also due to a bad label), but with that one, the label was loose enough that I was able to pull it off with minimal damage to the foil and slowly copy it over (we still lost a couple of songs off of it).
With recordable DVDs, the data layer is sandwiched between two layers of plastic. With recordable CDs, the data layer is an extremely thin (aluminum foil or thinner) layer coating the top of the CD. It is absolutely just sitting there on top waiting to be damaged by everything that runs across it. Don’t believe me? take a CD-R and snap it in two, and note the foil layer that will then flake off the fragments.
And I have also had recordable CDs and DVDs fail after getting wet–water seeps in between the layers and the discs start to discolor or delaminate from the outer rim in.
If the problem is indeed related to the label then the important thing is to remove the paper, not the glue.
The glue being left behind on the CD is probably not a problem. As Darren has said, the data layer is very fragile. You fiddle with that surface at extreme peril to the data.
So: soak the CD in warm water with no chemicals for 12-24 hours. Using only fingers, try to peel away the bulk of the paper. If tufts here and there stick to the adhesive, or the whole thing feels sticky after you’ve let it air dry that won’t matter. It’ll play now IF the data layer is intact enough that the CD player / PC can find enough of the data stream to get going.
And if their amateur choice of glue widely damaged the data layer … well there’s nothing to be done.
Well, I started by using a compass stylus to score a circle around the central hole (inside of the innermost track) and peeled away the label there, and it’s certainly progress: My computer is no longer spitting it out in disgust, and is currently about halfway through with importing it. Whether it’s importing it correctly remains to be seen (or rather, heard), but it looks promising so far.
OK, out of 16 tracks, track 10 has some stutters in it, 13 got cut short, and 14, 15, and 16 are basically non-existant. Which is probably about the best we’re going to be able to get.
As you doubtless know, the data runs from center to perimeter, the opposite arrangement from an LP. Since you’re missing the high-numbered tracks you might want to try gently cleaning the outer third of the non-label side and if it’s badly scratched, try some gentle polishing there too. Any scrubbing or polishing should be done radially to minimize any consecutive bit errors you may create.
At this point you’ve got nothing much to lose with a more aggressive approach.
Conceivably, any vibrations from an off-balance disc could have been bearable before the outer regions but too much to tolerate on the edge. If so, one of the CD recovery programs (mentioned above) could help with that by spinning the disc as slowly as possible.
Hm, I can’t see any scratches, but on looking closer, it looks like the writing on the disk (the part put on by the factory, not the amateur label) is completely transparent (i.e., not foiled). And the edge of the label is at about the right proportion to be where the tracks went bad. Is it conceivable that the disc needs something opaque over the outer portions? Would it possibly help to scribble over the outer part with a permanent marker?