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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

The drive failure comes from the burnt discs. Pressed discs (PS1, CDROM, etc) have pits and a reflective layer that reflect almost 100% the light from the laser. Burned discs have a thin layer of ink. They simulate those pits when they are burned. But since the light has to pass through a layer of ink you lose about 30-50% reflectivity. Those early lasers weren’t designed for CD-R. And to compensate for the loss of reflected light the CDROM controller would pump up the light output. And eventually burn out the laser. And one day you’d be unable to read discs. Then you’d hop on eBay to find hundreds of replacement laser modules for sale because it was super common

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I don't have a concrete source for this handy but I don't think this is totally accurate. For one, the plastic rails on earlier PS1 disk drives wear out and can be a source of error. Secondly, you still see failed disk drives on consoles without modchips.

I think burned discs are probably one factor but I think general hardware failure or dirty lenses are a more common cause.

Seriously - even when they were current it was common for PS1s to have dying CD drives. I and many others needed to turn their systems on their side to keep it reading discs properly.

Iirc that was because the spring loaded lens mount was losing its strength and the lens wasn't able to focus properly anymore

That's interesting. Any source on this? Because CD-R specs says:

>After recording, the CD-R disc satisfies the specifications as written in the chapter DISC SPECIFICATION of the Red Book.

Why does that matter? That doesn't mean that Sony's non-RedBook drive laser can read CD-R for 20 years

Presumably Sony had no reason to design to full spec compliance.

“ Some hardware compatible with Red Book CDs may have difficulty reading CD-Rs and, because of their lower reflectivity, especially CD-RWs.”[0]

Also it was common knowledge in the modder community that playing with a modchip burned the laser diode. The theory was the CD-Rs reflectivity made it overdrive. It could also be the modchip itself caused the laser to burnout. Most chips were soldered directly to the CDROM controller. And may have been inadvertently overdriving the laser.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R

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