I was taught this test by the man with the most CD-Rs in my acquaintance(roughly 3200 at the time of this writeup). He swears by it, and yet it is very easy to perform.
1. Take a burned CD-R of a brand you wish to test, preferably a misburned but still working one.
2. Bend the CD-R 90 degrees. If it does not break outright, let it straighten out.
3. Check the CD-R for any visual signs of decay, like surface layer flaking.
4. Place the CD-R in your CD-ROM player and read some files off of it.
If the CD-R passes all these steps without any problems, you can most likely rely upon it to last through 25 years of storage or being played/used once a week for 10 years.
note: this is not a
joke or a
bluff meant to make you
spray little pieces of broken CD-R and
foil all over your room. This test actually does give some indication of the
quality of the disc, and of the
adhesive properties of the aluminum layer.