They were stored vertically in a conventional CD 'cake box'?

I'd like to know myself if these are safe for long term storage of optical disks.

No, the Playstation 1 games were stored horizontally in the "cake box". Disruptor was on the bottom, not sure if that has anything to do with it being fully readable...

Might be poor manufacturing quality of course. I wonder about those boxes though. Maybe disks stored that way are more likely to overheat, or perhaps the lack of ventilation may cause some airborne chemical to do damage?

2fort5r wrote:

Might be poor manufacturing quality of course. I wonder about those boxes though. Maybe disks stored that way are more likely to overheat, or perhaps the lack of ventilation may cause some airborne chemical to do damage?

Well, the ones that are not working are boxless and thinking about it, yes, there is indeed very poor ventilation in those cake boxes... Should get rid of them but damn, they save space 😁

Actually... theory could be false. As I was finishing this post, I found a few music CDs from 1996 and 1999, stored in a bigger cake box and squished together with couple of others. I tried them on and... every song plays, no skipping. 1 problem though - some CDs were literally stuck onto each other, as if someone glued them. I'm still betting it's the cake box but there's just little to no evidence. The Ps1 discs weren't sticky when I was testing them. GTA 2 disc however seems to have "sparkles" on the black surface which made me think it's oxidation.

All I can say is that my PS2 collection where every game has it's original box has 100% readability.

take them to a store that has a CD/DVD buffer, have them grind off just the surface and see if they read again.

Afaik audio CDs are much more error forgiving than data CDs...

Yes they are, especially if you play them on a proper audio CD player. I have audio CDs that are badly scratched and unplayable on computer drives, but which play flawlessly in an old Sony Hi-Fi system.

Are you sure it's the games and not the laser in your Playstation?

candle_86 wrote:

take them to a store that has a CD/DVD buffer, have them grind off just the surface and see if they read again.

+1

It's extremely unlikely the discs have gone "bad" and is more likely they just have surface anomalies due to how they were stored.

However, the other possibility too is that they might be warped. They are made of plastic and enough heat will cause that plastic to warp. They say never to keep floppy disks in sunlight, but CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, same deal. Enough heat WILL cause issues with the plastic the discs are made out of, to a much greater extent even if any pressure is being put on the discs.

Absolute best thing to do is to always store discs out of sunlight and NEVER stack multiple discs on top of each other unless they're in a hard plastic case which will prevent them from being pressed or bended.

Is there any damage to the label side? The data layer is essentially right under the label on CDs. The tiniest nick on that side can ruin a CD.

Be careful with CD wallets/binders. Use only every other page so the discs don't touch each other when the binder is closed. I imagine a CD spindle could cause damage too but it seems less likely.

http://www.rfgeneration.com/news/Disc-Rot/An- … Buyers-1337.php ??

On the cdfreaks/myce forum, I have read that heat and humidity are major contributors to disc decay, so they should be kept in as cool and dry a place as is feasible. Perfection isn't practical, but just do the best you can. It's also been suggested that if spindles are used they should be laid on their side, so the discs are vertical.
Sunlight is surely #1, they definitely should be kept in the dark. At the extreme, if a disc is left out in the sun it can be ruined within days.

If you're worried about this you should get a proper CD storage case which stores each disc in its own wallet. Though this raises other concerns: is the plastic used in the wallets stable over time? I had one old CD from the 1980s that got trashed not due to 'disc rot' but because some of the plastic packaging deteriorated and stuck fast to the disc surface. I tried rubbing it off with alcohol but just damaged the CD even more.

SquallStrife wrote:

http://www.rfgeneration.com/news/Disc-Rot/An- … Buyers-1337.php ??

This looks and sounds more like someone who's bad at handling discs and has ended up scratching the top surface of his discs on a regular basis somehow. If it was truly "rot" those spots would be discoloured/deformed, not simply GONE. I'd never heard of nor seen this effect and I have at least 300+ CDs and DVDs, NONE of which exhibit this problem.

A poorly pressed disc will exhibit problems IMMEDIATELY. For instance, the light refraction curvature will be warped on the data side, or the top side will be off-centre ever so slightly.

I've noticed a huge amount of people are terrible at handling CDs, DVDs, etc., as they will physically grasp the data/label portions of the disc, leave them lying around on various surfaces, move devices which are actively spinning a disc... these actions are ALL able to cause the kinds of damage this guy is noticing.

In short, that article smells of something funny, and it's not "disc rot"...