MD discs expired?

[stahlhelm]

Hi all!

A few days ago a cleaned the dust from the top of my Sony MDS-JE500 deck and started to listen again my discs. The discs were untouched about 6 or 7 years. I was happy to hear the old tunes recorded mainly from CD and radio. Quaility is good as always. But! I tried to record again from radio and here is what I did:

I deleted a few tracks to make some free space and recorded the wanted session. Recording went fine, TOC saved. During playback the new tracks, here is the problem. There is no sound at all only the digital VU meter clicks up to the maximum in every 5 seconds approx.

Also tried to delete the entire disc: after recording and saving the TOC: disc error, the disc become unusable without content.

Bought a brand new blank disc yesterday: no problem with playback or recording absolutely flawless.

Here is the question: what happened to my discs? Are the faulty? All of them? Hard to beleive. Different brands (TDK, Sony, etc), different sizes (74min, 80 min). There were not stored in a dusty place or near to big magnets of on direct sunlight. The deck is in a very good shape as well.

This would mean that Minidisc hasn't got a long lifespan? I am confused here...

Please help with your comments if you could

Thank you

[THIS SUCKS]

  On 8/26/2010 at 11:02 AM, the wizard said:

Weird. Has there been some kind of electromagnetic hazard nearby?

Have you tried formatting those discs anew? Or won't they work any more at all?

open the slider door on the disk and take a look inside. maybe you will see something

[sfbp]

That ain't the discs (you said they played OK).

Something wrong with your deck. Never mind, they are cheap now. You should be able to get a nice one on Ebay or Craigslist.

Welcome to the Forums.

[stahlhelm]

  On 8/26/2010 at 2:06 PM, sfbp said:

That ain't the discs (you said they played OK).

Something wrong with your deck. Never mind, they are cheap now. You should be able to get a nice one on Ebay or Craigslist.

Welcome to the Forums.

The deck plays and records fine with the brand new disc.

  On 8/26/2010 at 11:02 AM, the wizard said:

Weird. Has there been some kind of electromagnetic hazard nearby?

Have you tried formatting those discs anew? Or won't they work any more at all?

How can I format a disc? "Erase all?" ??

[sfbp]

  On 8/26/2010 at 6:59 PM, stahlhelm said:

The deck plays and records fine with the brand new disc.

Whoa, that is WEIRD.

I have this problem on one HiMD unit, but I have never seen it on a "regular" MD deck.

Please check to see if the recently recorded disk is playing correctly in other units, can be edited etc etc etc. Buffers in these machines can sometimes give the appearance of working when in fact they are truly busted.

Stephen

[Syrius]

Open the shutter and look at the disc surface from below, against a light. If you can see light filtering through, then the reflective/recording layer (the one on top) has started to chip off. A couple of Fuji discs did that to me. Funny enough, all my Memorex discs work fine.

[freddyjollo]

well we should all remember that the top surface of minidiscs have a lubricant for the recording head, which is in contact with the disc. Who can quess how long before that goes off and what affects that has?

[darrencouch]

It could also be head drift on the MD unit I would think

[chadergeist]

  On 9/16/2010 at 5:34 AM, darrencouch said:

It could also be head drift on the MD unit I would think

Go here for blank minidiscs: http://protape.stores.yahoo.net/audio-tape-minidisc.html

I will never use Memorex MDs again. To record on a new one for the first time is fine, but when you erase it and record on it again...it is like the magnetic coding goes bad and the recordings come out either cutting out or won't play. There will be also scratch rings on the none record side of the disc like something was rubbing against the disc in the recorder.