To start out - I was so excited to find hydrogenaudio, which is quite possibly the best resource for all things digital music related. As this is my first post, please take it easy on me if I'm not up to speed on a lot of stuff. That being said, I have some questions. I have noticed that some of my CDs have started to develop holes in the aluminum layer, and I wanted to back them up digitally before they all went bad. My first question is if there are holes in the aluminum layer, can I still extract a good copy of the CD or should I just buy a new copy? My second question is this: if I wanted to backup my audio CDs to my computer and verify that they are clean (free of errors), but also have the ability to burn them back to an audio CD and have it recognized like the original CD, how would I do this? I was thinking of using a lossless format (FLAC), and I eyed up this great article. However, I was worried that a.) I wouldn't be able to play seperate tracks on my computer, nor b.) would it be recognized as the original CD if I were to play it in my friend's computer, let's say. Could anyone address my concerns? Many thanks!

When holes have appeared on your CD, consider the track affected dead. The laser needs the aluminum backing to reflect back to the read head.

However, a micron-thin layer of aluminum might still be there. So the only sure-fire way to know is to play it anyway. If it's still playable, then rip it without delay.

Many good rippers abound, the best and seems to be the most favourite at HA is EAC. But rip always to a lossless format, e.g. FLAC, WavPack, OptimFrog, etc. That way, you ensure that there will be no degradation of sound quality.

With EAC you have the option of ripping the whole CD as one file, or ripping separate tracks as separate files. Even if you rip the CD as one file, it can generate "CUE" files allowing you to play the separate tracks in the CD.

If you want to replay the ripped file on other computers, they either have to have a player that supports the format you use (e.g. WinAmp with the proper input plugin, or Foobar2000), or you have to re-burn the ripped file as an audio CD.

Pepoluan, thank you so much for your reply. These are true holes (i.e. I can see light coming through), so I guess I will consider these dead. I guess I needed to be more specific about the CD image. If I do EAC the CD to one big FLAC with a CUE file, and lets say my original CD dies, can I burn the FLAC to a CD and have it be recognized like the original CD? Meaning, will it still pickup CDDB? If not, how can I do this? Thanks again for the help!

Light coming through does not yet mean the track is dead. The micron-thin layer I mentioned is practically transparent if compared to other surface of the CD. The CD itself, or other tracks of, might still be salvaged.

I'm not really sure the answer your CDDB question, as I find CDDB very inaccurate, rather like to type the tracknames myself. Thus I never used CDDB.

I hope other HAer can help here.

Whether or not the rip is accurate, it should still be detectable with CDDB. However, this shouldn't be necessary, if you retrived this info in the cuesheet. You should, however, have a good copy of the original CD, provided you extract the cd with EAC, caches audio data ON and reports c2 information off. You can always detect your drive features, but in any case, disable "reports c2 information" to get a more accurate rip (in the drive settings)

The rip might take a few days to complete -- just tell EAC to cool down the drive for 10 minutes after 120 minutes of extraction...

Also, I learnt from a thread here that physical damage in a CD does not necessarily mean that the CD is dead.

See this thread : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=41793 for explanations -- basically, it is related to the way audio data is woven in the CD media (the same reason they tell you not to clean the CD in circular motions)

If you need any more help, please tell us,

Good luck,
Tristan.

Thanks again, pepoluan and Shade[ST], I appreciate the help. Just one more question to make sure I understand things clearly: if I back up my CDs to one giant FLAC with a CUE sheet, I will be able to play seperate tracks using a plugin for Winamp. So as I understand it, I could also use EAC to burn the FLAC and CUE sheet back to an audio CD, which would just be as good (if not better than) the original. Am I right? Also, in this article, why/what are they using Burnatonce for? Many thanks again - I'm so glad I found this forum!

Um, I am not sure if WinAmp is able to play the gigantic FLAC using CUE file. Or any other player for that matter. I think Foobar2000 is the only one, though I'm not sure.

However, theoretically any player can play such setup if the proper input plugin exists.

Any HAer know?

Just curious - how did these holes occur? I have had only two problems with CDs as such - getting a sort of fungus and for CD-Rs, sometimes the dye seems to 'come out' in green splotches rendering it unusable, especially if towards the center. The fungus is due to humidity and the CD-Rs I guess were in the car changer. But still does not explain why out of 10 same make CDs in the changer, 2 got green splotches.

Winamp has a general purpose plugin (CUE Player) to work with CUE+single files, similar to foobar2000's handling of them. However, it no longer works in 5.11+, and the author doesn't seem to be around anymore... There might be other plugins to do it.

Wow guys, thanks so much for all your help. I really like this forum and the people on it. Sandeep108, I have never heard of / seen this fungus you're talking about, but my CD-Rs have developed green splotches. I can still read them fine, but it's noticeable if you take a look. Anyhow, the holes were probably just caused by my carelessness in my youth, which I'm hating myself for... Could you take pictures of this fungus - I'm quite curious about this. Firon - thanks for your advice. I'll probably just end up trying out Foobar2000. It seems like a superior audio program. Well, I thank you guys, but still have a couple more questions (sorry I'm such a newbie ). My first question is how can I copy CD-Extra CDs? I have Googled and Googled, but no one seemed to have a surefire answer. My second question is in this guide, is the author using burnatonce to create an ISO? What are the advantages to making an ISO over just keeping the CD as extracted FLAC files with a CUE sheet? Thanks again, guys!

If you want to get warned about possible errors and also try error recovering, EAC in secure mode, test & copy is a safe solution, see http://www.high-quality.ch.vu
If you prefer single tracks over 1 large image file, like I do, then don't invest time into the image-thing, just go for the tracks with cue sheet also. If your drive is offset corrected (or even not), the copy of such a cd decoded from single tracks, will be recognized as original also in your friends drive, if you refer to cddb. Even regarding accurate rip, if you got a perfect extraction to tracks, you burned them again, and you rerip them, they should be ripped with same crcs.

User - amazing, thanks! Exactly what I needed to hear. I guess that just leaves me curious about the burnatonce from the article and about copying CD-Extras. Any help appreciated!

dunno, I haven't needed burnatonce yet. EAC, Burrrn, Nero, one of them should be sufficient, I have burned with EAC and nero so far, no other needs yet.

CD-extra:
no problem:
Extract the audio tracks as described at http://www.high-quality.ch.vu , then close EAC and view the CD in a browser, explorer, total commander/windows commander eg.
You should be able to see and get all directories & data files. (Enable "show hidden files" in your explorer_of_choice.)
Just mark them all and copy them to your album directory, that's it.
Sometimes it is a good idea to copy the data files before starting EAC, as sometimes, after the usage of EAC, the explorer knows only the audio part of the cd and refuses to show the extra data content.

Small holes, up to 2 mm, should be no problem as there is enough redundancy in the CD format.
All 100% of the audio data can be extracted.
That is, if there is no other damage and your drive is good enough.
Any way, EAC will tell you!

User - thanks for being so helpful! I'm on the road to archiving my CDs. Dinodisc - I didn't know about the 2 mm - that's quite surprising. I also didn't know that the redundancy on audio CDs was so great. I suppose that's quite comforting. You learn something everytime you visit HA, I'm convinced. Thanks for everyone's help!