Hello, Firstly, please excuse the length. I have an audio CD of a concert in which I performed many years ago which is a precious souvenir to me. I know this is a /computing/ forum, but I was hoping you'd be able to help me. The disc was recorded on a CD-R by, I presume, someone hired to record and produce discs. (It wasn't a big concert, just one at the end of a music workshop.) There is an adhesive label on it, which, by the looks of it, is starting to "unstick" itself slightly but not noticeably (I can see it through the translucent disc...). Also, holding it up to the light at a certain angle reveals wavy circles going around the whole disc. I'd estimate maybe 15 of these along width of the disc. I'd take a picture to host and link here, but I don't have a camera handy. Both my CD player and my computer's optical drive can READ the disc. However, it skips randomly and often. If I attempt to "rip" it to my hard drive, it skips less but has an annoying background noise that seems to fluctuate with the music itself, and took a long time to do so. I can't recall when I last played it and it was working properly. I recall that the car's CD player couldn't play it, but that one's rather old and I wasn't exactly patient with it... The worst the disc has suffered is relatively high humidity (70-100% in the summer has occured) in the last two years, when we didn't even have an air conditioning system in this room where I keep them. It also stayed in the car for maybe three days ... I forgot it there. I wouldn't think it would die off so quickly, though... Is there any way to salvage the data in better condition, or is the disc's data irreversibly damaged? Or, is there any way to correct the files I have now through Audacity, or another freeware or unrestricted shareware program? (I'll try soon if I can't easily salvage the data from the disc itself...) Also, what do you think would have caused the damage? I'm assuming either or both the heat/humidity or the adhesive label... Thanks in advance for any advice, Alex (Laogeodritt) --Laogeodritt

I've been inspecting the disc and a data CD-R I have... While this other one doesn't have the pattern that appears to be due to an adhesive (the label?), both seem to have the "wavy lines" most notably on unwritten portions of the disc. This other CD-R is much newer; I bought the package a year ago. The problem disc doesn't seem to have any severe scratches; just a few minor visible scratches. Nothing that would ordinarily cripple a disc... a few hardly visible ones going along the outer side of the disc, but those areas are unwritten --Laogeodritt

Isobuster is supposed to be good - nothing can fix the original (of course) but you may be able to salvage an image and reburn it Saying that XP is the most stable MS OS is like saying that asparagus is the most articulate vegetable

Try using a program called Exact Audio Copy. It is a ripping program but works differently then the common ripping method and will produce much better results. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/