What could cause a batch of CD/RW's to be "bad?"

Factual Questions
1

Last night, I tried to format one of a stack of 25 Memorex 700 MB CD-RWs with my computer, which has an XP OS, and regularly writes to Hi-Val CD-R’s with no problems. It didnt’ recognize the disc automatically. When I clicked on the F drive icon, it said I didn’t have permission to access the drive, so I opened up the CD wizard and told it to format the CD as a data disc. The computer couldn’t read the CD at all, and my system locked up sufficiently that the disc drive wouldn’t eject without restarting the computer.

Hmm, weird. So I take a NEW CD out of the stack, pop it into my laptop (also XP), open up Roxio CD creator, and tell it to write the disc. It was making lots of whirring and stopping sounds, but seemed to be formatting. About an hour later, I checked it, and there was an error message saying there was an error in formatting the disc and that it wouldn’t be usable. Again, I had to restart the computer to get the disc ejected.

So this morning, I found a CD-RW, also Memorex, that I’d bought in a pack of 5. These are supposed to be the same CD’s, but this one is formatting just fine on the laptop.

I bought the stack a few months ago, and blamed a problem in formatting one on my new-at-the-time laptop, so I don’t think I can return them, but is it possible that something went awry in the manufacturing process that made these discs unusable?

2

It’s possible the dye used in making the CDRWs came from a contaminated batch. Just a WAG, though.

3

Too many videogames and rock music?

4

Make sure yo’re not trying to format or write the CDRWs beyond their allowable speed. Although many newer CDRW drives can do up to 10X R/W access with CDRWs many CDRW disks top out at 4X and attempts to format them beyond that spped will fail. If you have Roxio there is disk info tab where it will tell you the actual manufacturer and the inherent speed limit or just look at the box.

Having said all that, with the other access issues you described it stills sounds like bad or incompatible disks which is highly unusual at this late date in CDR technology.

5

Yeah, some of the big manf are changing how they make them so they are compatible with the new dvd writers. Thus, you might have got some of the new Memorex’s…

6

Hmm, the one that worked fine was bought about a year ago. The stack that doesn’t work was bought in August. I’m only running them at 4X, I suppose I can try even slower… The labeling on the actual discs is identical. I’ll take one of the “bad” ones into the lab and see if it will format on the NT system there.

Thanks, I was just curious about whether they might be duds. :slight_smile: