CDA files are the format that audio files are recorded on CDs. CD burning software usually takes .wav files (which are more readily edited) and converts them to CDA when making an audio CD.

In a nutshell the laser beam changes the state of a pthalocyanine or cyanine dye on the surface of the disk. The laser burns what are called 'pits' and the area where the dye is not burned is called 'lands'. Pits and lands represent ones and zeroes of a data stream. All the reader laser does is pass on this stream of ones and zeroes to the software which takes the process from there. So in simple terms a CD is a huge string of ones and zeroes.

It is very bad news when the silver foil is chipped off. A CD is read from the center out. You should be able to see the area that has been 'burned'. If that is where the silver is chipped off you are out of luck.

Tape drives on PCs are usually only used as back-up devices and not for storage of music. You could put music files on the tape drive of course but you would not be able to put that tape in a HiFi cassette player. You could however play music files on your PC.

Sorry we know of no way to do this. Our recommendation is to use CDR media and just discard rather than try and re-write. They are still very inexpensive