Easy Fix for Scratched CDs

NotQuiteOnto writes "Ben Hayes (om3ga) has performed an experiment as to the best method to fix scratched CDs. He set himself the criteria that it can't take longer that 5 minutes and it has to be something in his house. The result isn't what you'd think ..." Luckily, he stopped before "peanut butter."

Comments

Put them to better use

[ExE122]

I tried a similar experiment but instead I used CDs that did play Kings of Leon to see if I could get them to stop.

I tried putting them in the microwave, throwing them across the room, smashing them with my head, and then eating them.

It worked! I never had to listen to the Kings of Leon again...

--
"A man is asked if he is wise or not. He replies that he is otherwise" ~Mao Zedong

Re:Put them to better use

[russ1337]

Caution: Plot Spoiler!!!

Next I tried a mixture of 3 parts water to one part olive oil (I know they don't mix, but shake!) That almost worked. I mean that the light wasn't scattered when I held it against the light, but my XBox couldn't read it, probably because it was yellow. This made me think that the oily/gel idea was the best way to go. I looked around the bathroom cupboard for somthing similar, and found this:

Yes, hair gel, and guess what... It worked!

I applied it in much the same way as the toothpaste, except I didn't dribble water on it. I rubbed it first. Even though I applied it to one area, it ended up evenly spread around the whole disc. I then dribbled water on to loosen it up so I could rub the excess off.

So, the secret to scratch free CDs is......

Hair Gel!-Ben

Re:Put them to better use

[orangesquid]

A problem that I see much more often than scratched plastic is scratched foil.
I wonder to myself---why isn't the top layer of the CD coated with another layer of plastic?
The foil is pretty much exposed to any particles... a thin layer of paint isn't going to do much.
The CD cases (the big book-like things, not jewel cases) always seem to accumulate little particles in the sleeves, which will rub against the foil, and scratch it, or worse, make it start coming off. This happens especially with cheap CDRs (also, exposing CDRs to heat tends to make the foil start cracking). I don't understand why the data layer isn't well-protected on BOTH SIDES. :(
I guess the solution to things rubbing against the disc would be to use only jewel cases, as they suspend the disc in air so that particles wouldn't be forced up against it, but, I can't carry around huge crates filled with jewel cases everywhere I go.
Perhaps the best solution is to keep original CDs in jewel cases, never use cheap CDRs, and only carry around copies of CDs/CDRs in the big CD books, and keep a portable air-can or hand-held vacuum handy to suck dirt out of the case every time it's opened/closed, and never leave it open (just open it to take something in/out, then immediately close it), and never put anything heavy on top of the case (it could press particles that are in the case into the foil).

Is there a better option? I've lost so many things this way... Are there CDR manufacturers that put extra layers of paint or a thin layer of plastic on the top of the CDR? I seem to recall some audio CDs I own having a layer of plastic overtop of the foil (especially older ones), but most don't seem to.

Re:Put them to better use

[nicholas645]

Read the article this afternoon at work.

Actually used the Hair Gel trick today this evening on a Netflix DVD: The Collected Shorts by Jan Svankmajer that was horribly damaged.

Alberto VO5 Hairdressing Gel for Men. The DVD, after about 19-20 minutes was basically unplayable, pixilation, video noise, no sound, etc.

VO5 did the trick, thanks Slashdot.

Even Better

[Billosaur]

Just try using Pledge. I actually did this with scratches on my glasses (the lenses are plastic) and it works pretty well. Note: you'll probably have to do it again in the future, as I'm not sure how long it will last on the CD.

Re:Even Better

[cerberusss]

Just try using Pledge.

Or, if that's not available, use K-Y Jelly!!

Posting anon for obvious reasons... Oh and you have to put it ON THE CD

Re:Even Better

[cerberusss]

Note to self: check "Post Anonymously" if I say so in the post.

Re:Even Better

[gEvil (beta)]

I don't wanna know how you figured this one out. I imagine it involves something along the lines of, "Oooooh, shiny...Hey look, a hole!"

Re:Even Better

[famebait]

I've also tried various filling-in materials: chapstick, polishing wax, etc. They all seem to work as long as you can get the excess off cleanly. But I'm not certian if they work for the reason we like to think. One experiment left the scratch very visible, but the CD still working better. That got me wondering. So I tried filling with a positively opaque crayon (wiping away excess), and that worked too. I figured it could be done even quicker if I could skip the cleaning up, so I tried with a black fine-line felt marker, simly drawing a thin line on top of the scratch, and guess what: it not only worked fine, it could handle much larger defects than nothig else had been able to fix (well, actually there was a barely audible artifact, but aleast it played).

It has to be sad: this was on music CDs, so you can lose quite a lot of bits without serious harm to the result (and even a slightly audible tick is something you can live with), so it's not a fir comparison to software. But it did make me wonder: do all those remedies really help the machine read more bits correctly by repairing the refrective plane, as it is tempting to believe? Or do they simply allow the built in error correction do its job, by blocking the area where the (clear but warped) surface of the sratch would otherwise make the laser lose its tracking?

Re:Even Better

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh and you have to put it ON THE CD"

Ok. I tried that.. but the hole is still too small. Should I try it with a CD from somewhere other than Virgin Music?

Re:Even Better

[paganizer]

I never put anything on a CD that might somehow get on the lens.
Pledge works pretty good, but I'll try pouring simmering water over them, first; IME it's the dust and crap trapped in the scratches that cause the laser to fail to read the data, get rid of that and you are go for a CloneCD session.
The most extreme solution I tried was the plastic scratch protectors; put a very small amount of vegetable oil on the CD evenly, then put on the scratch protector; as long as the CD is clean clean clean before you put the oil on, and the top isn't scratched, it'll read once, guaranteed.

Re:Even Better

[poliopteragriseoapte]

This is similar to how you fix scratches or defects on telescope or camera lenses. The problem in even a large scratch or defect is not the 1% of lens area that will be unable to gather light. Rather, it is the fact that light is scattered all around by the defect, lowering overall contrast. So what you do is paint the defect black. This way, you lose an insignificant amount of light, but the contrast of the image is unaffected.

Perhaps for CDs there is a similar phenomenon. I am not sure how the error correction in a CD works, I am not sure whether it has the problem of "identifying" errors - I thought it simply applied to the data stream a standard decoding transform based on distance to a correct codeword. So perhaps part of the benefit of painting the defect black is that it cuts down on reflections, so that you can read neighbouring areas of the CD better?

Re:Even Better

[homesteader]

It's what he happened to have on hand.

Re:Even Better

[LouisZepher]

Pretty much any type of oil or grease will dissolve latex. That's why most "personal lubricants" are water-based.

Interestingly, I work at a restaurant, and one of the banes I deal with his having to constantly change gloves, not for want of sanitation (which I do heed, btw), but because the pulled-pork (it's a southern thing *shrugs*) grease will eat the glove quickly. However, one night, I accidentally dropped a glove in the deep-fryer and nothing happened to it at all. No melting, no warping, etc, and the grease is vegetable-based.

Scratched

[HugePedlar]

But does it work for CD recordings of old vynil records?

I received the following message:

[sglider]

• If you are the webmaster, your account may have exceeded for one or more of the following reasons:
  
• Your site has used more than 20% of the cpu.
  
  Understatement of the century.

Wow!

[Aladrin]

Wow, that is SO not what I thought the answer was!

Aladrin Cache for those who missed it:

"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota"

Google cache of site

[laffer1]

Site has cpu quota issues... here's the cache.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:WiSKiTXvp74J:w ww.om3ga.co.uk/2006/07/27/scratched-cds-no-problem /+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&lr=lang_en

Re:Google cache of site

[dolphinling]

And after viewing it we find... it wasn't worth it. Just a bunch of "This didn't work. This didn't either. Nor this. And that didn't either. HAIR GEL! THAT WORKED!". No discussion on why or other things to try or anything.

At least it was short.

Re:Google cache of site

[MaxQuordlepleen]

err, or those with girlfriends, wives or daughters. Guess that's not you :)

I always used unflavored plain chapstick

[falloutboy]

1. Wash the CD with hand soap and water
2. Dry it off
3. Put a little chapstick on the tip of your finger, rub it gently in a circular motion on the surface of the CD where the scratch is
4. Wash again with hand soap and water

This seemed to work pretty well for small scratches.

Re:I always used unflavored plain chapstick

[txmadman]

And if your CD gets scratched at school, the nurse has like five sticks of chapstick in her drawer.

Re:I always used unflavored plain chapstick

[Lurker187]

I have never used that solution, but I do employ something similar: 1. Coat the disc with liquid dish soap 2. Rub the soap into the disc 3. Rinse off the disc 4. Dry it with paper towel It usually works.

...except I'd recommend against using paper towels. The best thing I've found for drying/dusting optical disks is an eyeglass-polishing cloth. Many eyeglass/sunglass stores give them away with or sometimes without a purchase. The old cloth kind is tightly woven and usually won't shed, but the newer ones are a fine synthetic weave that will pretty much never shed. I love them for getting dust and little kid fingerprints off our DVDs.

Re:I always used unflavored plain chapstick

[el_gordo101]

1. Wash the CD with hand soap and water

Just don't use Lava brand soap.

You could still be fixing a cd

[Whatsisname]

Wow, that site got owned in less time than it takes to repair a CD!

Brasso works

[JavaBrain]

The site appears to be down? After visiting this website I've stuck to Brasso (and it really works great):

http://www.burningissues.net/how_to/scratchrepair/ scratchrepair.htm

Article Text as site is down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scratched CDs? No Problem!
Published July 27th, 2006 in Main

We've all been there, bought a preowned game, put it excitedly into the console, then shouted "OMFGz0rWTF!?!?" as the console wouldn't recognise the game. Or perhaps you have a CD which contains important data, and M$ Windoze gives you a "Cyclic Redundancy Check" error (fancy way of saying 'Your disc is bloody SCRATCHED').

Whatever your problem is, it's caused by the same thing: A scratch. A scratched CD or DVD is just annoying!

So I took it upon myself to perform an experiment, to determine the very best way of dealing with a scratched disc. The limit I set myself, though, was that whatever I did it with must be somewhere in my house, and can't take longer than 5 minutes, including waiting time for things to dry, etc.

I thought of three main ways to cope with scratches:

1. Use an oily substance, or a gel, to fill in the scratch so that the laser goes straight through. This is the easiest option of the three.
2. Use a mild abrasive to round the edges of the scratches so that the laser doesn't get scattered as much. This is probably the most feasible option of the three.
3. Somehow take off a thin layer of plastic, removing the scratches altogether. This is the hardest, and probably impossible in 5 minutes with household items.

How a CD works:

I burnt 5 CDs with 6 songs on them:

* Kings of Leon - Razz
* Kings of Leon - Soft
* The Libertines - What Katie Did
* Kings of Leon - The Bucket
* Kings of Leon - Velvet Snow
* Kings of Leon - Taper Jean Girl

I then proceeded to scratch a few of the CDs with a pair of scissors, nothing deep, just enough to make the XBox in which I was playing them get annoyed.

The first thing I tried was plain old water, I know, sounds stupid... But the day before, I bought a game, which was scratched (not dirty, scratched). The first thing I tried was water, which I rubbed in gently, so that it stayed in the scratches, it then worked perfectly.

Next I had to rub it. The only way to rub something off a CD, is with a lint free cloth, going out in spokes from the centre.

Ok, so that didn't work too well on my test discs... Next up was, deodorant. I decided to use this, because it contained something oily (isopropyl myristate) which was dissolved in something volatile (denatured alcohol, propane, butane, isobutane, basically loads of hydrocarbons). So when I sprayed it on, I was hoping for the alcohols to evaporate while the isopropyl myristate separated into isopropyl and myristic acid to become oily and viscous, and stay in the cracks.

I rubbed it in gently, just to get it into the cracks, but not to remove it, and then let it sit for two minutes. It evaporated, and when held against the light, the "rainbows" got scattered less. It looked hopeful. But it didn't work.

Ok, next up is something I use to clean the fretboard on my guitar, Lem-oil. It's viscous and oily, and smells of lemon. I sprayed it on and this time had to rub slightly more vigourously, as it wasn't volatile enough to fit in with my 5 minute limit.

I rubbed it in, and it sort of worked. The XBox loaded the CD, and played it, but it was really crackly and noisy. So it kind of worked, but Caleb sounded pissed off and sort of like a monster.

Next I tried the method that a lot of people talk about: the toothpaste method. Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and using it you should be able to round off the edges on the scratches. This method looked like it would work if I carried on, as the light was getting less scattered by the scratches, but I set myself a strict 5 minute time limit. To apply the toothpaste take the tiniest bit on the tip of your finger, and without touching the CD with your finger its self, apply

What also works

[EEPROMS]

I found WD-40 and 2-26 Electrolube works well with scratched DVD's, CD's.

Lasts a few hours but long enough to recover the ISO or data.

Re:Slashdotted

[TheRaven64]

Not only was it Slashdotted, but it was pulled for exceeding its CPU, not bandwidth, quota. Hopefully this will teach people not to use PHP for static content...

I don't want FOP Damn it, I'm a Dapper Dan Man!

[Sporkinum]

Hair Gel.. Whoda thunk it?
"I like the smell of my hair treatment; the pleasing odor is half the point."

teaser

[gEvil (beta)]

Since the site seems to be down, I'll give everyone a small teaser from the final paragraph: I rubbed it first.

Betcha can't guess what it is...Keep in mind his original criteria...

mirror (Re:Slashdotted)

[jaredmauch]

here

Re:Oops.

[varmittang]

Foot note to add.

Yeah, our server is now on fire. But don't worry, the local fire department has been called.

My solution

[Groovel76]

I used to work at PRS Guitars so I had access to 1000 - 2500 grit sandpaper (available at any auto store). Worked great! Just do a wet sanding with that stuff and you sand through the big scratches leaving very tiny scratches that don't give the laser any trouble. I would polish it with with some scratch removing car wax though the big rotary buffers at PRS worked much much better. I may have to try the hair gel for the polish next time though.

Fixing Scratched Vinyl

[Reverend528]

After years of use, most vinyl records develop a single deep scratch that spirals from the outside towards the center. I find that rubber cement can fix it pretty easily. I did this to some of my old records a couple years ago and they sound much better now.

Solution for slot-loading drives

[eltonito]

I put a little KY Jelly on the disk before I insert it into the slot. The CD player seems to whirr with joy!

Re:Solution for slot-loading drives

[Daniel_Staal]

Dude, anyone who sees a bottle of KY Jelly next to your computer is likely to get the right idea about you...

Shouting "OMFGz0rWTF!?!?"

[turthalion]

From TFA:

We've all been there, bought a preowned game, put it excitedly into the console, then shouted "OMFGz0rWTF!?!?"

You know, I wonder how many of his readers have really shouted "OMFGz0rWTF!?!?"... I mean, how do you even say that? Where do you even start?

Re:Quickest slashdotting EVAR!

[FudRucker]

4 out of 5 dentists reccomend it.

old photographer's trick: nose grease!

[RMH101]

...also works on CDs. Turns out the refractive index of nose grease (i.e. wipe your finger down the OUTSIDE of your nose!) is approximately the same as celluloid. Hence wiping it on scratches on negatives makes them disappear. Also kind of works on CDs - same refractive index means less refraction from the scratch...

Re:Quickest slashdotting EVAR!

[Auntie Virus]

4 out of 5 dentists reccomend it.

WTF is UP with that 5th dentist????

Workaholics!

[inviolet]

Wax? Pledge? Toothpaste? Buffing?

Y'all are a bunch of workaholics.

Just lightly wave a propane or butane torch over the scratches.

It works for all polycarbonates, including CDs, DVDs, helmet visors, motorcycle windshields, airplane windshields, cellphone screens.

The trick is to wave the flame over it so very very lightly and quickly, that the rough edges of the scratch briefly melt and flow.

Re:Workaholics!

[Jonah Hex]

I second this, I've been using flame to fix plastics for many years. A few words of caution:
Be sure and use a "clean" burning flame, most pocket lighters, etc have impurities that can leave residue behind. Definitely do not use a candle.
The best method I've found is to lay the object flat and pass the flame over it (as mentioned in parent), as opposed to holding the object above the flame. Since the majority of the heat (and any burning impurities) are rising upwards this gives a more even melt with less chance of excessive melting.
 
Jonah HEX

Like this:

[pestie]

"Oh em eff gee-zors double-you tee eff!"

Yeah, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

Re:CPU Quota?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

fixing the scratches on my anime hentai cd collection is my job you insensitive clod!

Re:Candle wax works too

[B11]

One day I couldn't get my scratched Windows install CD to work. Grabbed a white candle, rubbed it on the disc, then buffed it out with a cloth. You could still see the big scratches, but the disc worked fine after that.

As well as one could ever expect a windows cd to ever work, I'd imangine

Re:In other news ... people still use CDs

[zakezuke]

1. What the hell do people need CDs for?

My first car only had an 8-track player. As a result I hit some thrift shops and bought some 8-tracks. My current car has a CD player, and I use CDs in it. Software is still released on CD for the most part, and they are rather handy to have to boot a pc in the unlikely event the HD gets buggered. Laptop users "should" at the very least carry one disc with them in this unlikely event.

2. How in hell do these CDs get scratched? It's not a long distance from the CD tray to the jewel case.

Many things don't come in a jewel case, they only come in a paper sleave. Anyhow jewel cases, while they are my most used disc transport vehicel, are not the most reliable suckers on earth. Those hinges tend to break if you look at them funny. Put a jewel case in a bag, hit the bag in the just right way, hinge cracks and disc falls out. I find that slim jewels tend to be more resistant to such breakage. While I favorite for size reasons, I must admit I prefer the long box and thin long box in the fact that they take the most damage without worry of the disc falling out.

quality

[Groovel76]

When I worked there, back in 2001, the thing that was severely slipping was the paint job. My supervisors were messing with the paint mixtures trying to get it to dry quicker and applying the next coat of paint before the previous coat dried which made the paint fragile resulting in more frequent burns (sanding through the paint down to the bare wood). My supervisors were also letting these burns pass through and allow the guitar to be sold which is why I left. I was told not long after I left that these two jokers were fired when Paul Reed Smith and Dupont (their paint supplier) got wind of this. If anything else has gone downhill quality-wise since then, I don't know much about it but in my opinion they are slowly becoming another fender. In my opinion, if you want a high end guitar, go to a custom shop like Fodera (semi biased suggestion since I just purchased a bass from them). They are known for their basses but they do make guitars (though not advertised on the website because of the high demand for basses) and love to make them. There are other custom shops and I'm sure their prices are the same price as a PRS but you'll get that custom fit that comes with going with the small business who hasn't given in to mass production. Again just my opinion.

Re:Olive oil

[Fred_A]

Given the speed at which the drives rotate the discs, that's what I've been wondering with all those solutions involving fluids. There's bound to be droplets that fly away from the disk into the drive enclosure.

Now depending on the location of the circuitry and the frequency of the use of "home repaired disks" this may or may not be an issue, but it certainly would make me a bit nervous...