answering:
        Kevin McCoy   ' message of:
        08/24/05  at 02:30 PM,
        About:Re: [OS2HW] What Is THE Secret To Re-using CD-RW Disks ???
Harry Travis wrote:
>The top, reflective layer is essential. You can learn more about the
technology and care of the disks here:
>
>www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/CDandDVDCareandHandlingGuide.pdf
>
>>From one of the documents in the nist document:
>
>For CDs especially do not:
>1. Scratch the label side of the disc.
>2. Use a pen, pencil, or fine-tip marker to write on the disc.
>3. Write on the disc with markers that contain solvents.
>4. Try to peel off or reposition a label.
>
I've used a sharpie pen to write on thousands (really!) of CDs, since 
they first came out with narry a problem.  You obviously can't write on
 the optical (non label) side, but cautions about writing on the top is
 an old wives tale.  I have a large statisitcal sample, over a very
long  time period to prove it.

I have a large cabinet with all the floppies, CDs and data DVDs I have 
accumulated over the last 15-20 years.  I put a serial number (with a 
sharpie) on each one so I can find it in my disk catalog database.  
There are 1500 disks and over 1 million files in my disk database.  No 
problems so far...

YMMV would be the appropriate caveat. Most of us have inadequately backed up, too.

I just quoted the recommendation of the NIST document by its archivist
expert. The non-solvent pens are not expensive. And the damage the NIST
archivist is concerned about is over the long run. 

Again, you've misidentified the "optical" side. It is actually
just under the label side.

HPT
-- 
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htravis at attglobal dot net
DemostiX
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