CD explodes into pieces in the ROM Drive.

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Stlr22

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Feb 23, 2004
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Here's the story. A friend of mine recently recieved a brand new HP computer this past X-mas. The very first time he loads a CD (audio CD) it shatters into pieces while in the drive. Apparently the drive was a bit loud while it was in operation.

It hasn't happened again.What the heck happened?


:confused:
 
Or maybe the disc was slightly off balance...or maybe the plastic on the disc had deteriorated to the point where it was susceptible to spinning forces tearing it apart. At high speed, a disc can actually start warping a little, so this is bound to happen from time to time. Never to me...yet. *knock on wood*
 
the time space bubble warping effect overpowered the ability of the structural integrity field to compenstate for rotational stress
 
Some damaged or poorly made discs just can't take the speed modern drives spin at. Let me guess- it's probably a 52x? Ever notice how the speed of CD-Rom drives really hasn't increased in years? This is why. When I got my 40x CD-Rom drive over 5 years ago it spun at over 7000 rpm. A 52x would have to be over 8500... that's faster than most hard drives spin. The last hard drive I took apart had beautifully machined metal platters, not cheap stamped plastic ones. Of course, most HDs are nearly silent and a 52x CD drive sounds more like a power tool...
The Plextor 716A DVD burner I just installed came set to run at 40x by default, despite being capable of 48x. Of course there's an option in the software to enable full speed, but it pops up a warning dialog box about "possible damage to the drive and media"... presumably this is exactly what they're talking about.
If he's got a copy of Nero around, he might want to use Drivespeed to drop it down to say, 40x. Of course that'll cost a little speed, but it'll also make the drive run quieter and help prevent this from happening again.
 
The *Audio CD* was pirated. The RIAA uses this method to deter sharing music.
 
If it did happen I would vote for a badly damaged or cracked disc being the culprit. That would account for sound and loss of integrity.
 
those buggers are loud when they explode, arent they? ;) my unreal CD did this too me... that was a sad day... but the CD did have little cracks around the center, so thats why...


then i picked up another for like 4 dollars:D
 
Stlr22 said:
Here's the story. A friend of mine recently recieved a brand new HP computer this past X-mas. The very first time he loads a CD (audio CD) it shatters into pieces while in the drive. Apparently the drive was a bit loud while it was in operation.

It hasn't happened again.What the heck happened?


:confused:
Click to expand...


If the CD was cracked, even slightly, prolonged play will destroy it. Has happen to me before with a few game CDs, using only an 8x CD-rom.
CD-Rom still works, its just a bitch to clean out afterwards.
 
Thats very interesting that happened. The way I understand it is that the reason 52x is the fastest read/write speed we see is exactly for this reason. Could have been the cd that was slightly off but my money is that the drive motor was out of spec.
 
Now that I think about it I think I saw a video somewhere by a group of guys, who also blew up an unheatsinked duron and got it to shoot out of a mobo, that got a cd to explode by somehow running the cd drive way out of spec. Not sure where it was though or how they did it. I think they even got some thermal images of the drive in the course of doing it also. AM I smoking something or does anyone else remember this?
 
Years ago...1999, I think it was. I was playing the original Sims. I heard a loud BANG, like a loud cap-gun went off. I noticed the game started to play slower, extremely slower. I tried opening my Compaq Presario cd drive, and it would refuse to open. When I forced it open, I saw shiny plastic shards. :( My Sims cd...

I just junkyarded my presario a little over 2-3 weeks ago; I cracked open that optical drive to find even more peices of that cd.
 
Actually Mythbusters did this. Aparrently a 56X CD-ROM can spin upwards of 30,000 RPM. They got some POS used computer and ran Nero's benchmark tools to try and get the drive to max out, but couldn't do it. So they hooked up CDs to a router (the woodworking kind) and they got a cheapy undamaged disc to shatter at just 25k. The name brand CDs would warp when watched with the high speed camera but they wouldn't break. So it's not a myth that discs can shatter in a high speed CD-ROM, however due to limitations in the reading of the data it's a rare occurence and requires other mitigating circumstances in order for such occurrences to be reproduced in a controlled situation. Also, the drive's metal shell and face plate does offer some protection from shrapnel.
 
CNN:

Man killed today from exploding cd containing pirated music. Family is convinced it was a setup and is now suing the Riaa for 4.2 million dollars.



Oh, and this is why I backup all of my games.
 
Mr_Evil said:
Actually Mythbusters did this. Aparrently a 56X CD-ROM can spin upwards of 30,000 RPM. They got some POS used computer and ran Nero's benchmark tools to try and get the drive to max out, but couldn't do it. So they hooked up CDs to a router (the woodworking kind) and they got a cheapy undamaged disc to shatter at just 25k. The name brand CDs would warp when watched with the high speed camera but they wouldn't break. So it's not a myth that discs can shatter in a high speed CD-ROM, however due to limitations in the reading of the data it's a rare occurence and requires other mitigating circumstances in order for such occurrences to be reproduced in a controlled situation. Also, the drive's metal shell and face plate does offer some protection from shrapnel.
Click to expand...

The shrapnel damage was the craziest part of that bit, it dented the metal case and lodged itself into the ballistics gel dummy something awful. Man I love that show.
 
I always watch for cracked disks when putting them into my computers. Little cracks won't do much in an audio CD player but when you stick them into a computer's cd-rom they spin really fast, especially when you first put them into the drive. When your listening to audio cds they still spin faster than normal if your using digial playback in my experience. A lesson to avoid damaged media if you care about your optical drive.
 
wow so its true

i had someone buy win xp home in oct 2003 and it exploded not shattered, when i recovreed the cd ,it was in bits. i personally thought he had cracked it but then delibeaty broke it to peices so he could claim a free o/s.

i wanted to reject him, but am i allwoed to make him a copy of the o/s providing he shows me proof of purchase with cdkey licenve key ,etc?
 
Wow i didn't know it was possible to have a disk in a cd rom shatter. :O
I knew if you put it on some power tools it will.
 
I used to work in a CD duplication plant, where basically robotic arms loaded blank CDs into racks of drives. Long story short, we had a CD rip apart inside of a drive one time with such force that it sent the face panel about 5 feet from the station :p. We thought it was pretty cool.
 
Spoke with three HW guru's here at work, and all had seen this before. Two said the discs appeared fine when inserted, but they were old. One said disc had a small crack near its center.

Lesson for today:

If your CD is cracked, spin with caution.
 
It happens every now and then. I was at a friends house once and it happened when he was showing me Diablo 2 and it shattered. I thought it was fucking hillarious.
 
What is more funny is when you are attending tech school and the mentor shatters a cd in a drive.

I was in the process of doing a MCP lab, I needed a 2000 server cd for my lab for drivers. The mentor had a ghost image sent to the machine I was working on. He placed the cd in the drive, it spinned up like it was reading files. Pop, and a grinding sound, the face plate of the drive bent outward.
The school burns a copy of the original of all of their cd's and they place their originals someplace away from the students. So, this copy was their only copy of 2000 server and the cd drive ate up the cd.

We took the drive apart, pieces of cd fell out, half of the cd came out, but the other half was nowhere to be seen. It was like it melted from the force of the cd spinning.
 
Keep in mind folks, in a 52x cdrom, the outside of the disc is spinning at nearly 140 miles per hour.

Mr_Evil said:
Aparrently a 56X CD-ROM can spin upwards of 30,000 RPM.
Click to expand...

1/3 that
 
It takes 90,000 RPMs for CD to get unstable. At 110,000 it shatters and has enough force to go through a CD drive and a few sheets of metal. They tested this on myth busters.
 
From what I hear, just about the only media that wont shatter are the AOL disks you get in the mail, they are made from a different plastic. Have not tried it nor do I want to after accidently shattering my first regular blank media disk not to long ago and almost took out my eye.
 
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