T40 created unreadable CD-Rs and CR-RWs

[Skysurfer]

Last month, I bought a T43 to replace my T40. That T40 was incredible and it was kinda sad to put it up on ebay to find a new home.

However, I am so lucky that I didn't sell the T40 right away. I had used that machine to make a lot of CD-R and RW backups of my work...and the T43 could not read those disks! No computer could read those disks!

No matter what machine I put those disks in--even another Thinkpad (a T42)--the machine reda the disks as empty. That's my entire career's life work gone! And, as fate would have it, I had a client who needed a file from one of those disks ASAP.

The quick and dirty solution was to pop the T40 harddrive out and use it as an external drive on the T43. I was VERY lucky in that I never keep old files on the harddrive after backing them up to CD, except that the particular file needed was recent and still on the harddrive. Phew!!!

But longer term, I needed the data on those disks. Then, about a week into owning the T43, IBM sent me a message to update the DVD software. BINGO. I was then able to read every one of those disks.

Lesson: Always test the back-up on another computer.

Now I'm in search of a better back-up medium. Perhaps DVD.

Thoughts?

Lawrence

[ZaZ]

I'd recommend Taiyo Yuden or Mitsubishi Chemical DVDs. An external hard drive in a case is another idea.