Have we come to a scientific conclusion if sharpies are OK to use to blank disk?

[eflat]

?

 

[yhelothar]

You can do a scientific conclusion yourself with a sharpie and a CD in a few seconds..
And yes, it works fine, people have been doing it for years.

 

[coldmeat]

How do you blank disk?

 

[mshan]

If anyone would know definitively, they are probably on one of the CD Freaks forums:http://club.cdfreaks.com/f123/

 

[ObiDon]

i've almost always used sharpies. i'll have to dig through my old discs to be able to state my own personal experience though...

 

[eflat]

it is like it has become an urban legend.

edit: i think i am going to start this experiment right now.

I am going to make two copies, cover the entire surface area with a sharpie on one, and leave the other one totally blank. I'll check every year or so and see if they stay the same.

and from then on we can say they last at least so many years, en counting.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: eflat

Originally posted by: astroidea
You can do a scientific conclusion yourself with a sharpie and a CD in a few seconds..
And yes, it works fine, people have been doing it for years.

I mean over the lifetime of the disk. Hundreds of years not a few seconds

The data itself will not last that long even when the surface is completely clean.

 

[eflat]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: eflat

Originally posted by: astroidea
You can do a scientific conclusion yourself with a sharpie and a CD in a few seconds..
And yes, it works fine, people have been doing it for years.

I mean over the lifetime of the disk. Hundreds of years not a few seconds

The data itself will not last that long even when the surface is completely clean.

Can you point to any science quality study that proves it though? ie. having done it in laboratory setting and making sure they are completely identical.. etc.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: eflat

Originally posted by: astroidea
You can do a scientific conclusion yourself with a sharpie and a CD in a few seconds..
And yes, it works fine, people have been doing it for years.

I mean over the lifetime of the disk. Hundreds of years not a few seconds

The data itself will not last that long even when the surface is completely clean.

Really? I never realize that the integrity of discs is compromised over time. Is this just with normal use, or if they're in a dark closet in storage?

 

[l0cke]

I have disks with sharpie from almost 10 years ago now and they work fine.

 

[Akhen]

I think that had to do with cheap cd's in the past, now most companies are smart enough to make CD's that can work fine even when written on.

 

[Foxery]

I have some ~8 year old CD-Rs with Sharpie labels that still work fine. Never knew it had ever been considered a problem...

 

[n7]

I prefer using Sharpies to the "CD Markers"

 

[thomsbrain]

I have CD-R's with music that are less than 10 years old and internally deteriorated to the point that they are only readable by a few CD-ROMS and no music players. These are discs with zero surface damage.

So sharpies should be the least of your concerns.

 

[SludgeFactory]

Crap media and adhesive CD labels are both known to be hazardous to your data, but I haven't seen much of anything to condemn Sharpies.

But if you want the peace of mind, CD pens aren't that expensive and they last a long time.

 

[clamum]

Um.

wat

 

[olds]

I always just write on the outside edge of the disc where there is no data.

 

[evident]

i always thought sharpies ok, ball point pen no

 

[biggestmuff]

Yes, the ink will write on the disc.

 

[nageov3t]

pretty much any felt-tipped marker should be fine.

I've almost always used sharpies, but I picked up some bic markers the other day which work equally as well.

the only thing you don't want to use is a ball-point pen, pencil, crayon, etc.

 

[Mojoed]

Originally posted by: l0cke
I have disks with sharpie from almost 10 years ago now and they work fine.

Me too. In fact I have hundreds of burned CDs and DVDs ALL labeled with Sharpie and as far as I know, there are ZERO that have failed, even after 10+ years for some.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
I always just write on the outside edge of the disc where there is no data.

I do better.

I write really small on the edge of the disc.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: loki8481
pretty much any felt-tipped marker should be fine.

I believe this is wrong. I read that the ingredient responsible for the permanent marker smell eats away at the CD slowly. Thus, sharpies are fine (they smell different than a regular permanent marker), and regular permanent markers are bad.

Anecdotally, I've got some CDs that are 6(?) years old which all read 100% correctly when I tested them. I labeled with a sharpie.

Before I got my sharpie (hey, I'm cheap ), I labeled a few CDs with a regular permanent marker. Sure enough, in a couple years, they developed some unreadable sectors.

Use the scan feature of dvdisaster to scan your CDs for bad sectors. Just because you can copy all the data off doesn't mean all the sectors are good. BTW, this program is also great for generating ECC files of your CDs/DVDs when you burn them so you can later recover them completely even if they have a couple bad sectors.

I'll edit this post if I can locate the book that had the info about permanent markers in it.

 

[OdiN]

I have a few CD's which are about 20 years old that are labeled with a sharpie and they're fine too.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: loki8481
pretty much any felt-tipped marker should be fine.

I've almost always used sharpies, but I picked up some bic markers the other day which work equally as well.

the only thing you don't want to use is a ball-point pen, pencil, crayon, etc.

Wood engraving tool perhaps?