Since CDs have Reed-Solomon and parity for error correction, and even if samples fail the player will interpolate, you can have a pretty ruined disk before it won't play anymore. It is all or nothing once it starts to fail though-- at the point the interpolation can no longer repair a dirty section, the CD will simply drop out.
I also recently (yesterday actually!) opened an old DVD+R (with an HFS volume) from 2002 and rearchived it to a new DVD. It still read perfectly, but it's been stored in a cool dark place, and has been mounted maybe 10 times.
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Since CDs have Reed-Solomon and parity for error correction, and even if samples fail the player will interpolate, you can have a pretty ruined disk before it won't play anymore. It is all or nothing once it starts to fail though-- at the point the interpolation can no longer repair a dirty section, the CD will simply drop out.
I also recently (yesterday actually!) opened an old DVD+R (with an HFS volume) from 2002 and rearchived it to a new DVD. It still read perfectly, but it's been stored in a cool dark place, and has been mounted maybe 10 times.
I agree