# Severely skipping audio on CD-RW: Erase or use new disK?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 21, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595 "2006-05-21T01:33:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595/1 "2006-05-21T01:33:19Z")

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I burned a CD-RW as an audio CD and played it in my CD-RW capable CD player. It has severe skipping problems towards the latter half of the disc. I can’t see any scratches or anything on the back. Would it be a waste of time to erase and reuse the disc? Should I use another one?

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**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595/2 "2006-05-21T02:05:43Z")

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Since it’s RW why not spend 10 minutes to RW it?

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**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595/3 "2006-05-21T02:10:50Z")

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I’m asking whether it’d be worth it. Would my second attempt likely have the same skipping problem, even though I don’t see any scratches or anything on the back? Or is the skipping because of a burning (as opposed to hardware) problem?

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**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595/4 "2006-05-21T03:04:34Z")

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Yes, you will likely have the same problems. Having had exactly the same problem a couple of years ago, I did some research and found that CD-RWs are in fact notoriously less reliable than CD-Rs. The name brand CD-RWs were a little better than the generic brands though.

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**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severely-skipping-audio-on-cd-rw-erase-or-use-new-disk/357595/5 "2006-05-21T05:35:36Z")

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Update: my second attempt with a different CD-RW skips too; both skip with my CD player AND iTunes. Probably gonna give up and get some CD-R’s, but now I wonder: if there are skipping problems with these CD-RWs, would there be data errors if I erased them and used them for data archiving? Or are the processes different enough?