Does microwaving a CD erase it?
I just read the question: Does microwaving a hard drive erase it? and now I am curious too... does microwaving a CD (or for that matter, DVD, or blu-ray) erase it? My initial thought is that some data would remain, but that it would largely corrupt the data. Would microwaving the CD completely clear off any data though, including small pieces of data, such as passwords? This is not a dupe because a CD does not have a protective case around it like a hard drive does, so the result will likely be different in the case of a CD.
The aluminium coating of the CD reacts and creates plasma. So it burns the CD effectively. Below you can see the image of a microwaved CD. It's safe to say it's been destroyed. What Happens When You Microwave CD
Ask a Question - Learn & Grow with Popular eLearning Community - JanBask In short, the CD is totally ruined, and you get a light show in your microwave; arcs of electricity that look a lot like lightning pulse throughout the microwave; all of this happens in as little as 3 seconds. It really is a sight to behold, and one worth looking up a YouTube video of. With what happens out of the way, you might ask why it happens. Microwaves (the appliance) produce microwaves (an electromagnetic wave). In their normal application, microwaves are handy because they pass through some materials, like glass, without affecting them, but they create rapid vibration in other materials. These rapid vibrations produce heat as a byproduct, and that heat warms your food. When microwaves touch certain metals, however, an entirely different effect takes place.