What is this disc

[Tobim6]

Hello what is this disc it reads only from one side and on the other side it tries really hard to find a track for like 2 minutes.

[Tobim6]

[dbminter]

What does ImgBurn say the one side you can read is?  It would say in the Log, probably, or, at least, the pane of disc info on the right hand side.

 

If I had to hazard a guess, this is a dual format flipper.  One side is a DVD Video layer and the other side is an HD DVD or Blu-Ray.  Probably an HD DVD side since your drive can't apparently read from it.

 

I know there was one Star Trek original series complete series release that had DVD layers on one side and HD DVD layers on the other.

[Kabombon]

Yeah, I agree with what dbminter said. If you have a Blu-Ray Player, you should try and play the content from both sides of the disc and see what happens @Tobim6

Since if it's a DVD with a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray side, it should run it's content on a Blu-Ray Player (probably), that would at least confirm that the driver you're using to read the disc with isn't correctly equipped with the features needed to do what you want (which is to make a backup of the disc I guess, considering how scratched it is) 😅

[dbminter]

If it's an HD DVD layer, then a BD drive or Blu-Ray player won't read it.

[Tobim6]

ImgBurn says its a CD-R MID: 97m27s28f (Princo Corp.)

I do have a bluray drive.

[dbminter]

Hm, well, that was unexpected.  Normally, flippers for CD's were reserved for Audio CD layers on one side and a DVD Video layer on the other for music videos or assorted data files.

 

It's decidedly unusual for a CD-R flipper to exist.  Those would normally be recordable CD layers on each side.  About the only thing I can think of is the other layer is a CD-R side that hasn't been recorded yet, but the fact it attempts to find a track indicates there is something recorded on that layer that the drive can't read.

 

It would be unheard of, IMO, for a CD flipper to have a CD-R on one side and an HD DVD layer on the other.

 

What's on the CD-R layer?  What happens when you try to open that side in Windows?  Is it an Audio CD?  Does it attempt to play as an Audio CD or does File Explorer open a folder?

[Tobim6]

On the CD-R layer yes its an Audio CD.

I tried in my bluray drive which does not support HD DVD

[Tobim6]

This is my last reply I can make today.

The side that does read has a little bit different look. When I look at the reflection in it it has more of a pink tint.

 

Edit: nevermind. Seems like the limit increased.

Edited Monday at 07:17 PM by Tobim6

[dbminter]

Yeah, when you're a new member, you're limited in the # of posts you can initially make to 5 a day.  This deters potential spammers.  After a few days, you should have unlimited posting privileges.

 

The different colored layer lends credence to my theory it's an HD DVD layer.  Also the BD drive being unable to read it makes me think that, but it's virtually unheard of for a CD-R to have an HD DVD or Blu-Ray layer on its flipper side.

 

Maybe it's a weird hybrid CD where one side is a CD-R and the other is a Super CD or something like that.  Super CD were closer to DVD's but I'm not entirely sure DVD drives can read Super CD.

[Tobim6]

Can it be just a CD without a label? That's what I was told it most likely is elsewhere.

[dbminter]

It's always possible.  I've never seen such a thing and I can't see much use in producing one because people might be confused which side you're supposed to put face down into a device.  Plus, given that the drive tries to do something to it as opposed to just returning no disc in the device indicates the other layer has a surface for a laser to pass through, indicating the layer is intended to be read.

[Tobim6]

Yes i can hear that it spins and the laser moving around and trying to do something for about minute and half. Then the led stops blinking and it spins down. ImgBurn says Logical Unit not ready, Cause not reportable. After that it spins up again and tries again to read the disc and it continues like this on and on.

Edited Monday at 07:46 PM by Tobim6

[Tobim6]

Omg it loaded after like 5 minutes.
Windows asking if I want to use as USB flash drive or in a cd dvd player. only the usb flash drive option is available. When I confirm the USB flash drive option, it says the disc is write protected.

ImgBurn says:
Disc Information:
Status: Unknown
State of Last Session: Unknown
Erasable: Unknown
Formatted: Unknown
Sessions: Unknown
Sectors: 16 777 216
Size: 34 359 738 368 bytes
Time: 3728:18:16 (MM:SS:FF)


Also I hear sparking sounds from the drive.

Edited Monday at 07:50 PM by Tobim6

[dbminter]

If you've got a CD with a branded surface, like those CD-RW's in your other post, you could try putting one of those in your drive with the label side down and see how ImgBurn behaves.  See what it returns.  See if it returns a Logical Unit Not Ready - Cause Not Reportable error.  (I've never seen that 2nd part before.)

[Tobim6]

https://voca.ro/1jzTcXTnZ6aS

https://voca.ro/11tR9HeeAqoV

Edited Monday at 07:53 PM by Tobim6
Add another link because post limit hit

[dbminter]

1 minute ago, Tobim6 said:

Omg it loaded after like 5 minutes.
Windows asking if I want to use as USB flash drive or in a cd dvd player. only the usb flash drive option is available.

ImgBurn says:
Disc Information:
Status: Unknown
State of Last Session: Unknown
Erasable: Unknown
Formatted: Unknown
Sessions: Unknown
Sectors: 16 777 216
Size: 34 359 738 368 bytes
Time: 3728:18:16 (MM:SS:FF)


Also I hear sparking sounds from the drive.

 

34 GB is a double layer Blu-Ray or HD DVD.  The fact that Windows asks if you want to format it as a giant floppy (Packet writing.) indicates it's a BD-R DL or BD-RE DL layer.  A BD drive wouldn't be able to read anything from an HD DVD layer.  However, it is practically unheard of to create CD-R flippers with a CD-R on one side and a BD-R/RE DL on the other.

[dbminter]

The good news that's not "sparking" but I figured you probably were aware of that.  That sounds more like the laser having difficulty switching between the layers.

 

Actually, another possibility is it's not a BD-R/RE DL layer on the other side.  It could be one of those single layer 33.3 GB BD layers.  Triple layer BD's use layers that are 33.3 GB each.  (So, yes, technically 100 GB TL discs are not 100 GB but 99.9 GB.)

[Kabombon]

BD-R XL (triple layered) discs are said to store "100GB" on cover (which means 100 Gigabytes), according to ImgBurn they hold 100,103,356,416 Bytes (not bits, to be kept in mind).
Since those discs hold 3 layers, it would result to exactly 33,367,785,472 Bytes / layer which means 33.367785472 Gigabytes (the amount left after those 33.3GB matter a lot). This proves that they actually store as much as they say @dbminter.

The confusion comes when you want to burn them. Always keep in mind that your file system will take up from whatever storage size is on the cover upon formating the media. For example one BD-R XL (triple layered) disc can only hold around 90.2GB of "real" data. What I talked about above is merely "theoretical" data.

Very weird though considering BD-R (single layered) discs, which hold "25GB" on cover, (means 25 Gigabytes) can store only 25,025,314,816 bytes.
That would make it a 25.025GB disc, or around 23.2GB after file system formating.

One would expect single layer discs to contain a "full" layer of 33.367785472GB like other Blu-Ray discs types do, but the lithography level went lower along with the technological advancement of Blu-Ray writers/readers available to consumers so this why we don't have 33.3GB BD-R (single layer) discs. 😅

Quote

ImgBurn says:
Disc Information:
Status: Unknown
State of Last Session: Unknown
Erasable: Unknown
Formatted: Unknown
Sessions: Unknown
Sectors: 16 777 216
Size: 34 359 738 368 bytes
Time: 3728:18:16 (MM:SS:FF)

According to this information @Tobim6, the media you're seeing is of 34,359,738,368 Bytes which would mean 34.359738368 Gigabytes of theoretical storage and around 23.3GB of storage after file system formating. Also, calculating the numbers of Bytes/Sector, it would be 2048 Bytes/Sector for that media like on any Blu-Ray disc known.

The key difference would be the Channel Bit Lenght that will DEFINITELY be even smaller than normal on today's usual Blu-Ray discs.
BD-R (single layer) discs along with the BD-R DL (dual layer) discs have a Channel Bit Lenght of 74.50 nm (Nanometers), and BD-R XL (triple layer) discs have a Channel Bit Lenght of 55.87 nm (Nanometers). As you can see, the lithography level of the disc goes lower and lower the more storage one layer can hold.

This would mean that your disc has a layer with an even smaller level of lithography than 55.87 nm, making this layer different from what a Blu-Ray is known to be.
The main reason for your reader to not being able to properly make use of the storage media should be the Channel Bit Lenght. The firmware simply didn't include the feature to read with that precision (hardware-wise, you CAN read data with higher precision than 55.87 nm, but this value was chosen by engineers because it's the most error-free).

Now, the math involved to calculate what's your Channel Bit Lenght there is a bit hard, I could do it though if needed (still I won't guarantee that it's a very precise result).

[dbminter]

I had wondered why BD-R SL's didn't migrate to using 33.3 GB layers, since they did exist in BD-R TL discs.

[Kabombon]

Quote

I had wondered why BD-R SL's didn't migrate to using 33.3 GB layers, since they did exist in BD-R TL discs.

Makes no sense for them to migrate to 33.3GB single layer BD-R discs at this point. We're at the beginning of the end for the Blu-Ray era.

Soon enough we'll have a big jump in the technological advancement of readers/writers and we'll be provided with denser storage media which might be or not similar to the current technology of the Blu-Ray since it's technology didn't reach it's limits yet and can be pushed to multiple Petabytes/layer theoretically according to it's inventor.

He succesfully made a CD-ROM of 120mm size and 1.2mm thickness which could hold 1.000.000GB of theoretical data and named it "Hyper CD-ROM".
Sony then used the optical system technology involved and adapted it on the "Blu-Ray" system to fit comercial purposes. They can simply repeat the process, but with today's technological advancement taken in account 😶