On Jan 4, 2008, at 6:10 PM, s. keeling wrote:
Floppies often became unreadable (when I still used them). I've never run across a CD I couldn't still read, and I've a few old ones.
I've had one. I left it in a sunny corner of my desk and the dye layer bleached. I've also had a couple where the label side got physically damaged enough that the reflective aluminum layer was damaged.
Both of those were clearly due to careless handling, though. I can't say I've ever had a CD-R that was stored in a cool, dark place and handled gently fail. CD-RWs seem to be a little less reliable.