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Audio CDs do use error correction, but the error correction used results in about 1 error per hour. This is obviously not good enough for data. So when the data CD format (Mode 1) was developed, an additional layer of error correction was added.
From http://www.mscience.com/faq62.html, "Every 2352 byte Mode 1 sector contains 12 bytes of sync, a four byte header, 2048 bytes of data, and 288 error correction bytes. Read failures for high quality discs are now reduced to about one every 100 years. This is clearly the preferred format for data."
There is another format (XA Mode 2) that reduces the error correction used and should only be used for audio/video files. However, the disks are more fragile to scratches, etc. To complicate things further, there are multiple forms of Mode 2, some of which add synching features but which reduce the usable space on the CD.
Go to http://www.mscience.com/faq62.html for more info on the specifics.
Hope this helps,
Jonathan
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