What Is Disc Rot and How to Recognize It Through Some Signs

What Is Disc Rot

Disc rot is a process that CD, DVD or other optical discs get unreadable through a long period of time. Even if the for-life DVD and durable CD will deteriorate due to disc rot. However, the disc rot will happen in various degrees on CDs and DVDs depending on the manufacturing process utilized.

In fact, the disc rot is divided into several types according to the different devices. That is because the component and structure of each device is different. Here are some frequently encountered disc rots. They are CD rot, DVD rot, laser rot respectively. To get more inforamtion about disc rot, please keep reading this article of MiniTool.

What results the disc rot will bring you? The direct one is that the device become unreadable. But there are some other effects in fact. For example, the disc rot can cause the scrambled or skipped audio or even without the capability to play the disc.

Though there are different kinds of disc rots, they share still some commons. For instance, you may suffer the same result and causes for the issue. To check the reasons for the disc rot, keep reading the following content.

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What Causes Disc Rot

The reasons for disc rot can be divided into physical and chemical aspects in general. To be more specific, the disc rot can occur due to chemical reactions with the reflective layer of the disc, ultraviolet light damage, scratches that expose the delicate and corrosive layer to the air, or the deteriorations of manufacturing materials.

In a word, you can encounter the disc rot issue due to multiple elements. No one has a certain answer to the question – how long a CD can last. That is because the answer depends on many factors like the manufacturing place and the storage conditions.

Read here, you may wonder if there are any way to prevent disc rot. Sadly, there’s no method to prevent disc rot completely. However, you can take some measures to keep your devices away from disc rot to the greatest extent.

• Touch the outer edges and hold in the center when taking the disc.
• Store your disc in an upright position.
• Store your disc in jewel or other similar cases instead of paper sleeves.
• Give a label to your disc with a water-based marker.
• Check the quality of the disc before purchasing it.

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The Signs of Disc Rot

As you know, your data on the devices such as CD, DVD can become unreadable because of disc rot. So, if you know if your devices have disc rot through some signs, you can take some measures to avoid worse consequences.

If you see the following signs, it is obvious that your CD has disc rot. And it’s time to conduct some operations to save your data.

• Put your CD under the strong light and check if the light shines through several pin-prick-sized holes. If so, it indicates that the CD has disc rot.
• The disc is discolored and looks like coffee stains on the disc.

What You Should Do to Protect Data from Disc Rot

Since you are unable to avoid the disc rot completely, you should something to protect your data on the discs. Then, you don’t have to worry that the data becomes inaccessible due to the disc rot. Making a backup is always the best idea to prevent data loss.

If you want to back up your data on the discs, you can refer to this guide to get the detailed steps.

In Conclusion

After reading the post, you may have a deeper understanding of disc rot now. You can be aware of the risk of disc rot after learning the definition and results of disc rot. If you are using CD, DVD or other optical devices, you can check their status.

If there’s something goes wrong, it’s time to take measures. If not, you should store your devices in a proper way. But the best way to keep data safe is to back up your data now to avoid data loss.