Have you had discs go bad purely from age?

Thread was sparked by the post below. I've heard it before. But I have discs from fifteen years ago that are still fine. I kind of doubt this happens quickly enough to be a problem.

Yes. Not that many, but I've got a handful of discs that have rotted right through the reflective layer and are now completely unplayable.

How old? Where were they? Environment?

Nope. The only time I have damaged disks is when I look after them poorly, and that never happens anymore.

Kept most of my CD's in wallets. First one that springs to mind is the first CD I ever had - admittedly it was a music CD, a Michael Jackson single. That one was very old, and was kept in its card case - Michael Jackson's Human Nature, lol.

Games, I couldn't say which, but I can have a look when I get back home. They develop a kind of speckled appearance, with lots of little holes.

I have 600-800 games some where in that range. I lost count. The only thing I had go bad is batteries in snes games. Out of 80 snes games I've only had one with issues. I heard some systems are prone to rot more then others. I heard Sega Saturn has the most issues. I've also heard of people having issues with PS1 games but I haven't. I have a mountain of discs cd's dvds games but I've never come across anything in my collection with rot.

I still have my Steel Panthers CD discs from 1994, Tie Fighter Collector CD-ROM, Windows 95 USB and Windows 98 CDs, Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far, etc. They're still readable up to now. Heck, I still have my backup on CD-R from 9-11.

I haven't found any.

...but I have digital copies of them and usually play from those so I haven't checked them in a long time.

Probably not. The oldest disc-based games I have are from PS1.

Only had one game where the inner part of the disk had a small crack that made in unreadable after a long period of use. It doesn't seem to be a problem, as evident in this thread many people have no problems and I only had 1 after all my years of gaming.

Nothing I didnt keep in a car on hot Texas summer days. RIP Ecco Tides of Time for Sega CD... You got me laid after so many raves in the late 90s :(

@ezekiel43: Age? No. Playing them consistently over time? Yes. I don't understand how a disc in its case, not used much can deteriorate if in avg temperature (70 degrees F)

All of mine work, disc are supposed to be fine for 90+ years, if you have some going bad already you're doing something wrong.

My old PC CD-ROMs are in good shape. But, I still prefer the GoG versions because they've been modified to work much better with current PCs and operating systems.

To be fair, I don't know that age alone causes rot. It could be that it's more to do with cheap card sleeves, like the ones some individual CD-R's used to come in, in my case:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/four-year-old-cds-rot-owing-to-cheap-cardboard-sleeves-1506069.html

Google image "Disc rot" for examples.

Not really. I take extremely good care of my games and I haven't had issues since the PS1 days when I didn't. For what it's worth I think those games just scratched easier, though

Never. I have CD’s/DVD’s/Blu Rays.

Lots of them are 25 years old now. All of them still work.

I sold my Sega CD about 4 years ago and all the games I tested worked great at the time.

Oldest game I have on disc now would be the first Ridge Racer and Destruction Derby games I got with my PS1 for Christmas 1995. Both work.

Even found CD's at my parents' home now with severe disc rot, and those have been kept in their (non-card) cases all along. Again, music CD's but still... You guys must be really lucky - they have a very small collection.

I haven't come across one yet, but I also haven't played most of my old games again. I've been wanting to give Discworld on the PS another spin because I just recently read all the novels, and that's the oldest disc based game I have, 1995. If I do play it, I'll report back.

Damnit, apparently my baiting skills suck.

So here's what disc rot looks like anyway:

It's actually surprisingly common, or at least it was in the CD era, and it might be worth checking your own PC CD's to make sure you don't have any affected discs too, because it sucks.

*edit* Not sure why the image came out all stretched, sorry.

Mine are all fine. I've been checking my old PC CD-ROMs from 1994:

• Steel Panthers
• Steel Panthers Expansion
• Wings: Korea to Vietnam
• Wings: Midway to Hiroshima
• Star Trek: The Next Generation - Interactive Technical Manual
• Star Trek Omnipedia
• Day of the Tentacle

My bundled discs from the original 3dfx Diamond Monster 3D:

• Mechwarrior 2
• Descent 2: Destination Quartzon 3D
• EF 2000

• Crusader: No Remorse
• Wing Commander 4

and others made prior to to 1998. They all readable still.

Mine are all fine. I've been checking my old CDs from 1994:

• Steel Panthers
• Steel Panthers Expansion
• Wings: Korea to Vietnam
• Wings: Midway to Hiroshima
• Star Trek: The Next Generation - Interactive Technical Manual
• Star Trek Omnipedia

My bundled discs from the original 3dfx Diamond Monster 3D:

• Mechwarrior 2
• Descent 2: Destination Quartzon 3D
• EF 2000

• Crusader: No Remorse
• Wing Commander 4
• Dungeon Keeper

and others made prior to to 1998. They're all readable still.

I think I also have an old CDi movie (Basic Instinct) and it looked fine the last time I checked it almost 2 decades ago.

I had FF7 on PC way back in the day, and it had the worst fucking case you could ever imagine. A cardboard sleeve for all the discs with an open top. They'd slide right out if you angled it far enough; it was atrocious. The discs were eventually so scratched from falling out all the time, that they became unreadable.

@jun_aka_pekto: I'm beginning to think I'm just an unlucky mofo, but then again I moved around a lot so I couldn't keep discs in their original cases since they'd take up way too much space, so it may well be my own fault. It doesn't seem to have affected anything I kept in DVD style cases either, so yeah...

In my experience, contacting the publishers about the few discs I'd scratched or couldn't get running netted me digital versions. Just had to be polite, persistent and provide proof of ownership and all was good. HMV's on the way out here in the UK due to poor physical media sales, so it looks like the future's going to be pretty much all digital regardless. Now I've just got to hope digital platforms keep their promises about providing backups if any of them do tumble.

Also, Descent 2 was too much fun. I need to pick that up on GOG.

No - I have CDs from MS-DOS that still work fine. I suppose the light thing mention above could be an issue with low-quality disks. The only problem I've had with gaming on the disc format has been scratches and failures of the disc drives themselves

Tons. From being too cheap.

When buying CD's and DVD's in the early days and making stacks of backups, like 100 to a spindle (not convenient for browsing) or in wallets.

The air gets in between the two layers of plastic and the film peels away in blobs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Newer discs have probably overcome this problem though. It's just a matter build quality.

I've kept my CDs in a Case Logic book-style storage. I made sure it didn't get squished between heavy stuff when packed away for moving or storage. Others, I've kept in their original jewel cases.

Climate also can have an effect. I'm not sure what the climate was in the places you stayed at. But, I imagine any place with a hot and/or humid climate is bad. I think the only bad discs I have are low quality CD-Rs.

Anyway, I checked to see which CDs still worked. The non-game ones are hopeless. But, so far, the Tie Fighter Collector CD-ROM still works in DOSBox as do other games. ;)

I've had it happen to the odd CD and DVD/blu-ray. It doesn't happen super often, but like 1 or 2 out of every 100 probably fails at some point within 5 or 10 years. But I'm sure the vast majority are lasting 20+ years since have a bunch that are that old and still going strong. I had several hundred CD's and literally over 2000 movies (mostly on blu-ray now). I think I've encountered like 10 or so blu-rays that went bad so far (a few of them might have been bad from the factory, but I've also had a few that I know used to play fine that went bad). I'm sure it's the same with optical media based video games since it's the same exact format.

Never had it happen with a game, but then again I don't test old games nearly as often and/or might have simply not hit on the area where the game data went bad. Whereas I used to listen to my CD's in the car all the time, and I still watch my blu-rays all the time. When a CD starts skipping at a certain track or a blu-ray just locks up midway or refuses to load up at all, it's kind of hard to miss.

Actually I would bet newer discs are worse since they probably moved their factories to China and only cheap discs are made now.

I used to backup live music CD"s, and there were gold discs produced in the US and other high quality discs that were made in Japan that supposedly had a much longer archival life. They were a little more expensive, but I literally never had a bad disc with them. Whereas the cheaper brands with notoriously worse quality (sometimes bad discs right out of the package) were coming out of Taiwan and China. I bet the US and Japan made factories no longer exist.

A well cared for CD or DVD will easily last for decades. The oldest disc in my collection is a CD of piano music that I purchased in college nearly 30-years ago, and it's still in perfect condition.

I've got disc form early 90's they don't go bad, unless you leave in the sun.

Hot: I wish :D

Humid: Yeah, maybe that's a factor

"piracy" ftw.

I'm pretty sure the discs form the 90s that I looked after still work. The key dangers to these things is oxidation, which is accelerated by heat and exposure to sunlight. Keep them in a dark, cool place and they last longer. Simple as that.

I think a couple music CD's but I'm not sure. I do remember that at some point they started printing music on thinner and thinner discs and that concerned me. 99% of unreadable discs were due to dust scratching the discs I think. And with current discs like Blurays I don't believe that really happens anymore.

Fired up some PS2 games a while ago and they worked fine. Never heard about this, I mean, unless you're one of those people who grabs CDs from below with your greasy hands.

Anyway, everything decays with time but I remember reading somewhere that CDs take around 100 years to start decaying or somethin

I don’t feel like the old discs rotted away but rather many of my old ps1 discs just got worn out from being played so much, or the consoles became less capable of reading them cause some discs wouldn’t be able to play and they don’t look that bad. Of course when you let others borrow your games and lug em around in your backpack who knows what happens.

No

No. You mean from just being in the case? I didn't know such a thing was possible.

Only one CD and one DVD. They started showing these dull random color dots when seen from the plastic side, then some sort of "white moss" started to appear in the cover side in the same region of the dots, and then one day there was just plastic where the moss was.

Scratched CD's probably plenty, but never scratched enough to be useless, they still work but it just takes more time for the reader to read them.

Definitely old ps1 games I also had a few early purple ps2 discs just refuse to work over time.

Never. I even have old PS1 games on CDs from the 90s that still play fine. DVDs and Blu-rays are said to have an even better life expectancy than CDs and will probably outlast most of us if taken care of and stored properly. I think anybody that has discs going bad already is either not taking good care of their discs or the disc was pressed on poor quality media.

@sancho_panzer:

" I've got a handful of discs that have rotted right through the reflective layer and are now completely unplayable."

This is why I prefer digital games.

Hmmmm. Perhaps, I should check my old floppy disks (Dune 2, Lands of Lore, Windows 3.11, MS-DOS 6.22, etc) and VHS tapes too. I don't have a working Amiga anymore. So forget those. But, I still have my very first Windows laptop and it has a 3.5" floppy drive. I also have a VHS player that's been sitting in storage (indoors).

@ezekiel43: The only thing about digital is that there's no guarantee that digital service will still be active in 10 years. I've purchased two movies on the Xbox store, and there's already been times when I can't access them due to errors on MS's end.

All the gaming discs I played never went bad, but only the music CDs did because I did not care of them as well as the gaming discs.