I agree with John in that peeling material off the back of a CD can be hazardous to it. The backing material must be 100% intact at all times. If the coating should be worn, dissolved (from peeled off glue) or scratched, the laser will pass through instead of reflecting off the backing. The result is the same as a bad spot on a hard drive or floppy disk. However, something of this nature has happened to me, so I understand your interest in wanting to do something. An important work related CD came to me with this ridiculous, off-center address label pasted on it and just as in your case, the CD would become erratic in the drive. I was fortunate in that I could still use it. I'm not sure what bothered me more: 1) that someone would be so stupid as to do this to a CD; 2) that the contents of the disc was too valuable to me for something like this to happen; or 3) that prolonged use of the CD in my drive would wear out the spindle bearings! ARGH! Like....CD labels are not that expensive! With that said, I am 'not' advising you to peel those labels off.......but......I know that I would be trying to do so, ever so carefully. Now you know why I make it a point to never gamble for money! ;-) Something about 'nopain -- no gain!'
You can't use corrosive solvent, nor can you scrape it off. However, if you are willing to let me experiment on your behalf, I have an idea. I happen to have a citrus-based label removing product that has worked very well in removing paper labels and residual glue without marring the surface. I would be willing to take a junk CD (Oooh! I can do this to an AOL trial CD! YIPPEE!!!!) and see if the CD reads properly after removing a permanent address label. I will inspect it under a magnifying lens to see if there's any erosion of the backing. If all is well, and you happen to be able to find the same kind of product there, go for it. This might be more fun for me than beneficial for you. Simple minds need simple challenges. :-) The other alternative is make new copies of the CDs from a slower-read burner. It has to be slow-read or you will induce the wobble and make the outcome just as unreadable. T ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Following the "First -Suspect Me" Thread with interest. My Case... Brand new store bought V9.0 pre-installed computer. It has a 52x CD on hdb (fstab was set up for hdd but i corrected that). The supplied disks are recorded download edition 9.0 40x recordable. The disks have an envelope address size sticker plastered on them. The CD will read any package ok after repeated attempts. Which solutions will help reduce read errors the most. 1. Buy another IDE cable and put the CD on hdc. 2. Remove the stickers incase they are causing speed wobbles. 3. A software method of throttling back the top read speed. (Does this exist and what is it?) 4. Other suggestion...? -- Michael
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