I have a 20-years-old data CD (pressed CD, not CD-R), but it looks rather new, because it keeps sleeping in its box. There's no visible dirt or scratch, or other abnormal look. Its back is fully covered by paint.
I'm sure it worked 20 years ago. But now I have tried it in 6 CD drives and none worked.
The typical behavior is , after I put the CD and double click the CDROM icon, the drive tries to read out something but failed, and it tries another time, making the same noise, over and over again.
I have tried many bad CD recovery software (forget which ones) and got a small portion of files recoverd.
Someone tell me that the coating may shrink after all these years and the disc may be slightly warping. If I remove the coating using chemical agent it will recover. I would like to know if this explanation is likely. Because this operation is also destructive.
