Jul 19 2007Aftermath of exploding CD
This guy was playing Reader Rabbit: Thinking Adventures with his son when his CD exploded in the optical drive.
We both sat there for a second trying to figure out what had happened and that is when I saw the front trim piece of the DVD drive hanging from the computer. The piece that hit me in the leg was one of the plastic clips that holds the trim piece in place and as soon as I saw what had hit me, I knew the CD was toast. After unplugging the machine and a little disassembly, I had the drive out and removed most of the pieces from the explosion.
You can check out all of the pictures here. I didn't even know this was possible. Although to be fair I don't know a lot of things. Did you know the Earth revolves around the Sun? I know. Shocking.
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Reader Comments
1. Buttsex - July 19, 2007 6:57 PM
Mythbusters already covered this. He had to have had a broken disc before. Cd drives do not spin fast enough to shatter a disc.
oh and First!!!
2. RandomNigel - July 19, 2007 7:10 PM
Aw, #1 beat me to it.
3. one22andan8th - July 19, 2007 7:31 PM
same thing happened years ago to a friend at school. information that you all needed to know...
4. Matt - July 19, 2007 8:12 PM
Mate, this happened to me AGES ago. Ive also heard its not that uncommon. Ive also heard that Asians dont replace CD drives because companies dont replace warranty's on OEM drives. FUCK!
And Mythbusters can suck my dick, I swear the God it was a new dics that I put in and it shattered.
5. beckyg - July 19, 2007 8:51 PM
A learning CD? Well, it's obvious that they knew too much, so it self destructed.
6. XPD - July 19, 2007 8:55 PM
Yeah it used to happen all the time when "high speed" CD Roms came out.... some diascs would just shatter from the speed. Havent seen it happen in quite some time now.
7. Kevin Rodrigues - July 19, 2007 11:11 PM
I've been involved in such 'explosions' a couple of times. The first time it scared the shit out of me and I thought the cd drive was toast.
8. Eddy - July 20, 2007 12:26 AM
yeah this happened to me with my first computer...
good thing my freaking warranty was still ok...
9. vixen - July 20, 2007 4:49 AM
i agree! i saw that myth busters episode and i believed that it couldn't happen either.
but it did.
i had that same thing happen a few weeks ago. makes you wonder bout some of the other myths that they can't 'recreate'!
(still love the show though!!)
10. sboy - July 20, 2007 4:57 AM
Myth busters are retarded freaks. My CD exploded too. I'm guessing it's because of the heat of the CD that causes the CD to explode. I had a CD in my drive, one day, I heard a "boom", not a pop, a "boom". I was like "wat the hellz?" Then a few days later, when I tried to put in a cd, I found that the CD inside had exploded. It was a cd-r, with starcraft on it. I still have the CD in my computer, and pieces of the CD are still in the drive. This has nothing to do with spinning the CD until it explodes. YOu gotta be a fucking idiot to think that. It's more heat related, and probably bad plastic mix w/ the fact you have a layer if metal on top.
11. Bruno - July 20, 2007 7:22 AM
Mythbusters are very very good with stuff. I believe that the experiment they made was just not accurate enough.
The first prototypes of 52x CD-ROM drives were dangerous. I don't know WHAT was so dangerous about them, but one thing is sure: they could disfunction and make CDs explode. It happened to me, don't worry.
The thing with the Mythbusters' experiment is that they considered speed alone, neglecting the fact that maybe the CDs spun fast enough to make CDs break if they were to be just a little loose in the drive and hit some other piece in the drive. At those speeds, I believe a collision could make the CD blow into pieces.
Whatever the scientific explanation is, there is one, because it happened to a buttload of people.
12. Balls of Steel - July 20, 2007 8:29 AM
Happened to me once.
13. Brownian - July 20, 2007 8:48 AM
Happened to me twice.
14. The J man - July 20, 2007 8:49 AM
To me it has happened, thrice
15. That Guy - July 20, 2007 8:59 AM
Never happened to this guy! Oohh Lucky Me!
16. Joe Mamma - July 20, 2007 12:59 PM
I guess he didn't accept the mission impossible.
17. Eddy - July 20, 2007 5:16 PM
i can't recall the mythbuster episode where they tested this...
shall we bombard them with emails demanding a retest?
18. sean - July 20, 2007 7:50 PM
the same thing happened to me when i was playing age of empires, scared the crap out of me, and broke my 150$ dvd drive. (this happened quite a long time ago)
19. Justine Tyme - July 20, 2007 9:03 PM
Mythbusters covered the supposed CD-SPLOZUN thing very comprehensively. The speeds required for disc failure were SO beyond actual CD-DVD drive speeds that they conclusively proved that apparenly ALL of you on this site claiming the contrary are "not-quite-telling-the-truth"! I've never understood what motivates little minds to so freely spew crap into the cyber-sphere?!?
20. paula d - July 20, 2007 9:32 PM
Happened to me too... and it was an Encarta encyclopedia CD years ago. Took CD-ROM back to computer store, got a replacement. They replaced my software too.
21. betch - July 22, 2007 12:45 AM
it's funny cause it's reader rabbit.
i remember that dork. waaay back in grade 1.
good tymez.
22. derek - July 23, 2007 3:18 PM
Just wanted to stop in and say thanks for linking up to my post. I've tried to contact the company about a replacement disc for my kids and they are giving me the run-around.
Like many commented, I'd heard of this happening before but had never experienced it or seen pictures of it.
23. lazylaces - July 28, 2007 6:10 PM
It revolves around the SUN? phptt... It revolves around this website!
24. john - July 29, 2007 4:38 PM
my friend just linked me to this article after i told him about my starcraft cd exploding in my cdrom as i was watching a game replay. i figure it happened cuz my cd is like 8 years old and couldnt handle the stress.