A strange thing has happened. I was going to listen to a mini disc through my Sony M-ZE900. Inserted the gumstick battery (fully charged), inserted the disc and connected the item's pressed play, started up for a few seconds and then nothing. Panic stations- has my player finally packed up. Pressed play several times- still nothing. Just tried another disc pressed play and bingo- played perfectly. Tried another player using the unplayable disc and it displayed blank disc. The disc had been playing perfectly up until now. How was this possible. So the E-900 had somehow erased my disc completely. So is the player faulty in some way or could it possibly be the disc itself ? Has anybody else experienced this happening to them?
The E900 is a player only @Derek marshall (https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-e900). It can’t write or erase discs since it only has the pickup laser. Is the unit perhaps an R900? Check the location of the overhead write head (opposite the laser). Although you need to press and slide the switch to start record. Can’t really happen accidentally I would say. Next time, make sure the disc is locked as read only for your rarer recordings. I frequently copy a CD or so onto a MD, I don’t bother with those.
It sounds like the TOC has been corrupted somehow while the disc was not in use or in storage. I guess that can also happen if the disc surface was not properly manufactured to begin with and has broken down in the area reserved for the TOC. It happens with other magnetic media so maybe degradation of optical properties with some MD's can be an issue overtime. I've only ever experienced read failure after a disc was placed in a faulty unit for a record which was not working correctly.
Silverera, Emiel. Emiel I know this is a player only. I think Silverera is right. It could be the disc. This particular disc is played nearly every day in different units so I know the disc was ok when I last put it away. Maybe the repeated playing over the years.
I know some unusual faults can occur with discs. Recently my copy of Paul Youngs pre-recorded MD starting skipping on track 9. It got worse every time I played it. I decided to pull the read guard to the side and look at the disc surface and found a deep scratch had been etched into the surface of the disc in a ring pattern. Every other track is playable but not that one. So even Sony pre recorded MD's can have quality issues with a piece of plastic moulding from the case dislodging and scaring the disc surface.
Or at least I can honestly say I don't know a darn thing about mini discs as I bought this unit a long time ago. Seals new in the package and never used it cuz I just don't do digital music Sony net, MD Walkman mz-nf520d Here's the back of it.
Well that's the beauty of having something that's sealed new in the package as I bought items like this that I thought I would use in the future and now it's the future and I'm not using them but I'm not opening them at the same time just to find out because I have so many other walkmans and a few disc men and then hundreds of boomboxes to play with rather than to mess around with this item that I don't really know much about because I'd never recorded with this media before but I bought one because there was high interest years ago about this media format. I just looked around to see what these are going for and I found one for $400 and another one for $800 in eBay but I'll sell this one for less if you're interested in buying it. decentman4you2007@gmail.com Also have a Panasonic at a Sony Walkman that are sealed new in the package as well but their cassette players. Anyway, good day.
Sony MZ-NF520d mini disc sealed new in the package was sold one September 2024. I guess I need to make a new thread specifically about this model and that it's gone as of today