Exploding CD Disc???

Cass Broadview · Post by **Cass Broadview** » 23 Jan 2012 12:24 pm

can a CD record really explode in my computer? Scares me a little. I thought a cd was safe to record data on? And i have a lot of old scratched ones. I hear them spin and whine on the rom, but never thought they would actually explode and hurt someone???

http://askbobrankin.com/exploding_cdroms.html

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 23 Jan 2012 8:37 pm

Yes, if the disk is out of balance and the CD player is spinning fast enough to cause centrifugal force to cause it to fragment.

The most common cause of unbalanced CDs and DVDs is stick on labels.

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 7 Feb 2012 6:26 pm

Seems VERY unlikely to me.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 7 Feb 2012 8:17 pm

The most common cause of unbalanced CDs and DVDs is stick on labels.

I learned a little about video editing by taping all the Andy Griffith shows and then editing out the commercials and burning them to DVD's, with stick on labels that I designed in Quark. After a while they quit playing, because of the labels, but I never had one explode. I had to soak all the DVD's in isopropyl alcohol to get the damn things off, and then they played fine. Just my experience. Google it, you'll see that Wiz is right.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 8 Feb 2012 3:13 am

We see that occasionally on the Dell forum, but it's not something that happens often.

Paper labels are probably the biggest cause of drive failures. Some adhesive material in labels can even cause the coating to dissolve and the disc to fail to read. They will also flake off and cause a CD or DVD drive to fail. Most car manufacturers warn against paper label discs and will not honor a warranty if a paper label was the cause of a CD player failure. Most DVD players have the same label warning as the laser can heat up the disc and cause the paper label to flake off. Depending on the disc and the laser it can heat a disc up to the point it warps and then as Wiz notes it can "explode".

RW (rewriteable) discs are probably more susceptable to heat related issues when writing as they require a higher intensity laser beam. Actually every time a disc is loaded into a drive part of the drive initialization is to calibrate the laser for the specific disc (each disc has a calibration track on it).

Jos Roderkerken · Post by **Jos Roderkerken** » 15 Feb 2012 9:46 am

The xbox360 had some problems with the exploding disc's

they found out that the cdrom player was able to move a little and when the disc would go into overdrive the player would start to resonate.

It happent so its possible.. but not to worry to much.. My pc should have exploded by now.

The state of some of my dvd's are alarmingly bad