Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 35762
Berkeley CSUA MOTD
 
WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ
http://csua.com/feed/
2025/05/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/24    

2005/1/18-19 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35762 Activity:moderate
1/18    A bunch of CD-ROMS I have are corrupted. They're in a nice
        CaseLogic case, closed, stored in a temperate (70-85F), dry
        location. I have no idea why they're corrupted, but I know
        one thing-- they've been sitting close my Sharper Image Ionizer
        [plus UV mode turned on], for maybe 6 months. I'm suspecting
        that either the ions or the UV killed them, but is it actually
        possible with the CD case closed? How about ions, are they
        bad for electronics, etc? ok thx.
        \_ Nah, most likely you got a bad batch of CD-Rs. Some CD-Rs
           were just badly manufactured and the dye just broke down.
           I'm assuming these are CD-Rs and not regular CDs. If they
           are regular CDs then there's something wrong with your drive,
           assuming that the CDs aren't melted or something. Otherwise,
           pressed CDs are very sturdy.
                \_ I thought about that, but both of my Memorex and
                   Maxell batch are dead. And the weird thing is that
                   initially the disk read were alright till maybe the
                   last 10% of the files, which end up to be corrupted. So
                   I think maybe one side of the CD got exposed to
                   something harmful, but I don't know...
        \_ How old are they? CDs are known to "go bad" after 7-10 years.
          \_ I made them since 2000-2001. Never really subjected them to
             sunlight or extreme heat. Must be the UV+ionizer           -op
        \_ the data is written from the middle outward, so your experience
           of the "last 10%" failing first indicates that the seal on
           the outer rim failed and the dye layer degraded from the outside
           towards the middle.  do you see any funny patterns on the data
           side, e.g. corrosion or weird non-concentric variations?  i too
           would blame the ionizer.
2025/05/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/24    

You may also be interested in these entries...
2007/11/12-16 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:48623 Activity:nil
11/12   how do i make a fail safe magical backup for my debian box
        that i can quickly boot from if the box explodes?
        \_ keep a linux live boot cd around for just such an emergency
           \_ And learn about 'dd'
        \_ I was hoping there was something as slick as CCC, for unix.
           \_ You can first duplicate the disk offline with dd, then just
	...
2005/12/30-2006/1/4 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41180 Activity:nil 65%like:41172
12/29   A friend's primary Windows 2000 hard disk got nuked, and her
        backup drive is missing data. I'm looking for any
        recommendations for data recovery software for FAT/NTFS
        (restoring deleted files or corrupted filesystems) or
        recommendations for data recovery services in SF?
        \_ Get an external USB drive enclosure.  You want something
	...
2005/12/27-30 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41151 Activity:nil
12/27   I'm trying to help out with my mother in law's computer problems. She
        has two Windows XP computers (one desktop, one tablet pc) that she was
        using for her job before she retired. The computers themselves are old
        and her workplace doesn't want them back but they are installed with
        all this corporate Novell stuff that I don't know anything about and
        her account on the computer has very restricted permissions (she can't
	...
2005/6/22-23 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:38251 Activity:high
6/22    When I burn an iso image using the "Disk Utility" in OS X (Tiger)
        and I then use readcd on a linux box to verify the md5sum of the
        burned cd, the md5sum of the CD doesn't match the md5sum of the
        origional iso file. Is OS X modifying the iso image before it
        burns it or something? Seems strange.
        \_ Does this match on any of your other burned-CDs vs. ISO files?
	...
2005/5/18-19 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37730 Activity:nil
5/17    My second data backup question. I am looking for a backup media I can
        take off-site. I'll repeat that we've found the failure rate backing up
        to CD unacceptable. She wants to go with an Iomega product but I was
        wondering if people have had good/bad experience with these,
        reliability-wise and if they have better suggestions. I have about
        $400 for this.
	...
2005/4/1-3 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37032 Activity:low
4/1     I'd like to play my favorite EA game on the laptop. However, I
        don't have a CD player for my laptop and I'm wondering if it
        is possible to mount the CD on my desktop and access it via
        wireless. I know that EA has really weird CD protection
        schemes, that's why I'm wondering if anyone has successfully
        done this. -ok thx
	...
2005/3/19-20 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:36772 Activity:high
3/19    Given the choice between a firewire and USB2.0 connection
        (between an external hard drive and my computer), which one is
        better and why? Thanks.
        \_ Firewire is faster and more robust for that application.  USB
           is more widely available if you'd ever want to move the disk to
           another machine.  -tom
	...
2005/2/23-24 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:36377 Activity:very high
2/23    Hi, my girlfriend's mom is in Taiwan.  Her computer stopped booting;
        it shows BIOS, but it won't show the WinXP screen.  So, it sounds like
        a virus (less likely, partial drive failure / OS corruption, but let's
        assume it's a virus).
        She is concerned about recovering her files.
        Normally if I were on-site I'd just pull out the drive, put it in an
	...
2005/2/3-5 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36055 Activity:moderate
2/3     So, I'm really confused about this notion of computer science
        metrics where everything's kind of 2^n, but sometimes not. For
        example, if I have a 4 GIG hard drive, does that mean I have
        exactly 2^32 bytes of space? Does that translate to 4000000000
        bytes, or some number that's close to it? How about megahertz?
        Say I have a 2.5GHz computer, does it run at exactly 2500000
	...
2005/1/12 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35672 Activity:very high
1/11    Using SATA (serial ATA) as the one and only primary HD, any
        problem with boot up? How about with motherboards built in say,
        2002? Any problem with that? Pros/cons with SATA? Comments?
        \_ You expecting to install Windoze on SATA and have it boot?
        \_ I had to get a special driver floppy to install Win XP on a recent
           box w/ onboard SATA.  It wasn't too hard, though.  YMMV.  --dbushong
	...
2004/11/12 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:34853 Activity:moderate
11/12   Dual boot question:  I had a hard drive set up with dual boot.
        XP and Linux.  I had problems with the Windows partition.
        I got a new hard drive.  I connected the new hard drive and set it
        as the slave drive.  I went into setup and set it to boot from the
        slave drive (the new one).  I then reinstalled XP on the new drive.
        Oops.  My boot loader on the original drive got overwritten.  The
	...