I'm in the process of ripping all of my cd's so that I have a hard drive back up of everything that I own. I was ripping Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won" disc 1 using Easy CD-DA Extractor when about half way through it I heard a noise that sounded like a jewel case had fell and hit the floor. I looked around and didn't see where anything had fallen. I then noticed that my program was frozen and the light had went off of my drive. I had to use a paperclip to get the drive opened and my disc was disintegrated.

Has anyone had this happen to them before?

New copy protection system?

Actually I saw the Mythbusters test this. Apparently it's not unheard of.

Copy CP discs first with this program: http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/~haahrm/copying-protected-cds/

One time I went to sleep while watching a DVD, and woke up to a loud whistling sound from the player. The DVD appeared to have a crack running through it under the surface. I always wondered if it was because I went to sleep and the main menu probably played over and over, although that's happened with other discs with no problems.

I saw that too. Nasty business if the disc fragments lodge in your flesh.