Slashdot Mirror
Effective Optical Disc Repair?
CyberKnet writes "I have an extensive music collection on original CD media. While most of it is in impeccable condition, I have a few discs that have suffered extensive scratching through listening to the disc either via a portable disc player, or in a car CD stacker. I've long since learned the error of my old ways and don't listen to discs in those devices any more, but those discs are irreplaceable in many cases. I would very much like to be able to repair them or have them repaired to original condition, or at least well enough that I can pull the tracks off once and archive the track data. I have heard really uncomplimentary things about devices like the Skip Doctor; ranging from it not helping to it making things worse. I've heard great things about JFJ devices that are seen on the counters of most Hollywood and BlockBuster video stores, but even their consumer devices start at $250. I would appreciate any other suggestions for devices that people have had personal experience with that won't break the bank."
Clean the disk well and rip it with cdparanoia.
If legal in your location, replace bad tracks with copies from elsewhere.
Burn to new CD.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
I've heard that rubbing toothpaste on the shiny side and rinsing with water can be effective.
Get toothpaste. NOT GEL, but regular white paste. Get a small cloth, put a dab on it, then rub it from the center to the outside in straight lines going outwards around the whole disk. When you're done, clean it off and pat it dry. Disk will look like hell, but it'll work.
I have rescued lord knows how many CDs with this technique, including console ones that were completely screwed, and even resurrected a dead DVD-RW just this past weekend using this technique.
If your discs are really scratched up try encoding them on the computer. I use CDex to encode to lossless and CDBurnerXP to burn the backups. For some reason my computer can record the discs to flac that my cd player cannot play. (I even encoded a disc with a full crack right through the middle of the disc with no skips at all) The skip doctor that my gf has works just fine. But if the scratch is really deep it might not work too great. I'd say try the skip doctor for the minor stuff and make backup copies of what ever you can.
Have had good luck using this stuff, a piece of chamois, and some elbow grease. Good on all kinds of plastics, not just CDs/DVDs.
http://www.amazon.com/Novus-Polish-Plastic-Scratch-Remover/dp/B000B4Q9Y6
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Make a few quick, gentle passes over the recorded side(s) with a common butane blow torch, of the plumbing variety. The heat slightly melts the polycarbonate plastic, causing most scratches to get filled in, and other sharp edges to be smoothed & making reading easier. Tips: 1) don't overdo it, or the plastic might warp, 2) doesn't work well with recorded media (CD-Rs), 3) first practice a couple of times with media you don't mind losing.
Toothpaste, or Brasso. I hear Brasso works the best.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Get a $5 tub of Mother's Metal Polish. It'll take out scratches in any plastic as long as you use a cotton or microfiber cloth.
It's also handy if you get a gimp DVD from NetFlix/Blockbuster and don't feel like waiting for a replacement.
Typically, you can buff down the worst of gashes in less than a minute. If you can't, then the $250 device probably wouldn't have worked either.
Since there's no way you'll use the whole tub on CDs or DVDs, you can use the rest to pretty up your silverware, brass stuff, and rub rust off things you don't feel safe using steel wool on.
If anyone recommends a home remedy (like toothpaste or baking soda paste), I would try it first on one of your not-so-irreplaceable discs.
Otherwise, you may be *very* unhappy with the results (like if you use a "whitening" toothpaste, or if your tecnhique sucks).
Reminds of an A-Team episode where someone (Murdoch?) tells Mr. T to clean his gold jewelry by putting it in the microwave. Mr. T was not amused with the results, to say the least.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Cleaning well can make a huge difference, and using alternative CD players might help as well (some seem to read better than others). I had a friend use a mild polish and lots of rubbing to fix his scratching problem.
I always wanted to try a Dremel with a buffing attachment on some of the very scratched DVDs I get from the library, though I haven't been brave enough. If you've got an old Bon Jovi CD laying around (or something similarly useless), you could scratch it up and then see if you could repair it using various methods.
This is an ongoing problem...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3940669.stm
And its much, much worse for CDRs.
I rip all my CDs and have several digital copies, no I do not P2P or share I simply try to appreciate my music for longer.
I've found most CDs, even fairly severely scratched ones, can be read if you clean them with tap water, wiping them with your finger (perhaps the oil helps fill the scratches and reduce the diffraction), buffing them with a soft wet paper towel, and then with a dry paper towel. Remember to always wipe and buff the CD radially outward from the center, and never sideways.
The layer of plastic above the metal or dye film that contains the actual data is thick enough that you can buff a significant amount of plastic off without damaging the data. The devices you've heard of do just that. Do note that removing the plastic may make the CD more sensitive to further damage, and copying them to another disc would be wise.
I've had a Disc Doctor for a long time, and it works OK. It can't handle deep scratches, but neither can anything else. The same goes for scratches on the top side. I imagine if people had problems with the Disc Dr. it's because they are incapable of following directions correctly.
I'd say try it if the toothpaste doesn't work. For light scratches from normal use, it would probably work fine.
Toothpaste and a cloth used to clean eyeglasses or camera lenses works great for surface scratches. The toothpaste acts as a polish on the plastic and will remove most of the surface scratches.
Put a blob of toothpaste on the CD (data side, obviously) then polish the CD with the toothpaste and cloth. Once you're done, wash it off with water and either use a dry cloth to dry the CD. I've done this myself on several CDs and they've gone from unusable to playing great.
Nowadays I rip the CD as soon as I buy it, then store the CD away so I don't have to deal with scratched CDs.
I don't want to be mean, but why would anyone use original (and sometimes irreplaceable) CDs in his car? Always use copies of the originals for in-car listening.
I've had a skip doctor for years now and always had great results. It is worth noting that your disc comes out of the machine looking like absolute crap but if you follow the directions it will play flawlessly.
I thought all toothpaste has some very mild abrasive in it.
Can you elucidate further on the irreplaceable aspects of many of your discs? CD's last a long time, many were made, many remain available in catalogs, and then there's Amazon, iTunes, eBay, and your local secondhand music shop.
In fact, if the record companies are smart (admittedly the RIAA backed lawsuits strongly cast this into question) everything ever (re)mastered in digital should be available from online music stores.
If you're just trying to see how cheaply you can accomplish this that's fine, however, then it's simply a matter of cost, not availability.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I wonder if that works on 3.5" floppies...
Of course, 3.5" floppies are in cases, so I'll have to just squeeze the toothpaste into the case, and then use the disk drive to spread it out over the surface of the disk.
It might be worth it just for the tech support call.
Thousands are enslaved every day. A River of In
How about asking your local Hollywood or Blockbuster folks if you could run your few discs through their fancy machine?
at the entrance of the Movie Trading Company® where I live.
I had a bad disc from a library loan once, took it there, chatted up one of the staff and they buffed it up to a playable state for free.
I imagine that a small gratuity on your part would go a long way to having a minimal stack done the same way.
Caveat: Do as other posters suggest, first attempt a rip using CDParanoia & EAC, just in case the machine munches the irreplaceable originals (it's known to happen).
Good luck with your project.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
My local family video will resurface the disks with their professional grade JFJ for a few dollars. If you only have a dozen or so that need to be done that might be the cheapest, safest, and easiest way to get your disks back.
Find a store that sells used albums and CDs they will most likely have this service. This is what I do.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I've used polish for mag rims with great success. Some people mention toothpaste but I find that very fine grit polish works wonders. I think I used a German polish called Weenol and a polishing cloth. My rules: don't press hard. Just rub and rub and rub and rub. Think of a polish that is used to polish the clearcoat of the your paint on your car. It's 2500 grit. Basically, you need something with a very fine grit a flat surface, some TEST CDs a good polishing cloth and time.
Good luck!
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Can't recommend it because I haven't yet done it, but I bought a (I think it was $15 or so) kit to polish out the scratches and restore the look of my old car's headlights. Since the headlight material is similar to that of CDs, I intend to try it on a couple of scratched, skipping discs. Kit came from Autozone, but I suspect most similar stores have similar products.
Seriously. Get some of the oil and grim off the your face. Most common place is the sides of your nose. Just rub your fingers into it really hard, and then wipe onto the scratches. Might want to a light wipe with a clean cloth right after. It works on fairly minor scratches. Other than that, you can try Brasso. If your face is too clean, go find some highschoolers.
Use a disc doctor, or the toothpaste method, to get rid of as much of the hairline scratches as you can.
Next, grab yourself a good fine-pointed marker. The finest you can find.
Black out the large scratches with this. Be very careful to only cover the damage itself - look straight at the disc from the laser's perspective and if you can see any light reflection from the damage, black out the reflective spot. This is difficult, and requires a good marker and steady hand, and sharp eyes.
The idea is this:
The drive passes over the scratch - not only is the scratch unreadable, but any glare/reflections off of the damage interfere with reading the data that is immediately adjacent to the scratch. That neighbor data is used to reconstruct lost bits using reed-solomon parity coding. The more bits in the packet the drive can read, the more likely it can recover the damaged area.
After doing this, I suggest ripping the disc to a computer. The drives meant for reading/writing data have much more support hardware/logic for dealing with lost bits, where an audio drive is more geared for making such errors unnoticeable.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
...to recover tracks from compact disc: 1. insert said CD into laptop/desktop 2. see if spins/reads correctly 3. open browser 4. in the URL bar type "piratebay.org" 5. this will give you another search option 6. enter cd title and/or artist 7. ensure you have one of those illegal bittorrent clients 8. recover tracks/whole CD/maybe even a few extra tracks not on CD *if using Comcast this may take a bit longer than normal 9. RECOVERED! 10. eject and toss compact disc, flip off RIAA
There's a free utilty called EAC, Exact Audio Copy. Its two disadvanteges are it's windows only, and isn't the easiest to use. Google can find it for you. You should be able to make a pristine, new copy of your CD.
Also, scratched CDs can often be repaired with toothpaste. Only use on the bottom (laser side); do NOT use toothpaste on the top (label side) or you will ruin your CD. Do NOT wipe in a circular motion, wipe in the direction of the radius (center to outside edge). Just use your finger with a little toothpaste on it.
Alas, neither of these methods is foolproof; I have one CD that the outer tracks are rioned on.
The first thing I do with a new CD these days is to make a copy, put the original in its case and leave it there. The copy is only a copy and if it gets scratched, no matter, I still have the original.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Just make a friend at Blockbuster, or slide them a few bucks, to let you borrow their $250+ cleaners for an hour. The solution to your problem was in your description of the problem. :)
Comment of the year
Since you only license the material and do not own it, they should be able to replace the media for a nominal fee.
Use Micro-Mesh to remove scratches from the music side of the disc. It will remove scratches that you can catch a fingernail in, as well as the minor ones. Yes it is "sandpaper", but it is a system of varying grits that are used to restore the optics of aircraft windows, etc. I have extensive experience with it, and it works great when recovering a damaged CD. http://www.sisweb.com/micromesh/
thats not toothpaste...
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
How can I rip a region locked DVD (windows environment) so that I can reburn it? Bought a DVD overseas and the thing won't work in my (North American) DVD player.
My in-laws run a CD repair business. (Link excluded to prevent accusations of spam.) Mostly they buy beat up junk in bulk lots, fix them up and resell them at a profit, but they can easily handle salvaging damaged collections too.
The machine they use is a professional-grade one that you can drop the most horribly mangled CDs into, and a few minutes later they come out looking *new*. Search around the net a bit, and you'll find plenty of mom-and-pop operations that will be able to do this for you for a reasonable fee.
For a more DIY approach, if you're happy being able to get the CD readable once so you can rip-and-reburn it: Try nose grease. In private to avoid funny looks, hold the CD up to the front of your nose, and give it a good wipe. Spread the grease mark out with your fingers, and notice how all the scratches are now much less visible. The nose grease fills in small scratches, and it has an index of refraction close enough to the polycarbonate to make it optically sound. I've had very good luck doing this after the whitening toothpaste trick others have mentioned. The whitening toothpaste makes a good first pass, but leaves a little haze... The nose grease fills in the haze, and makes the CD salvagable.
Simichrome is the best buffing paste.
Apply gently a small amount on the scratch and buff with small and firm movements with a clean flannel cloth.
ZP
We only can learn from our mistakes.
This may not be available in your location/culture but just to add weight to the similar suggestions.
I went to the £1 shop and bought CD repair kit with two bottles and some cloths and sponges in it.
One bottle was a fine abrasive slurry which smelled exactly like brass polish, the other was to clean the slurry off.
Rubbed it for a while and it was fine. One disc was so bad I had to use a cotton buffing wheel (carefully) in a (variable speed) drill.
Has worked on gamecube games and video dvds, but didn't work on my friend's sims CDROM, though I think that was because the metallic recording substrate was damaged too (spots of light visible through it).
Worth a try. Brasso or something.
I have a 4 year old that listens to CDs everynight at bed time. As you can image a small child can be a little bit tough on the old SpongeBob CD. Several of her CDs became unplayable. I purchased a Skip Dr at the local Best Buy for under $20. All I can say is it worked perfectly. All of the cheap solutions presented here, toothpaste, Brasso, etc all do the same thing. They are essentially rubbing compound. The difference with using the Skip Dr is that your strokes are perfectly uniform all the way around the surface of the disk and it takes less than 60 seconds to repair a disk. If you have severe scratches or gouges none of the inexpensive solutions are going to work well. One other note; when you read a forum and somebody says that the Skip Dr left scratches all over the CD, that person didn't bother to read the instructions. As with any of the buffing methods small radial scratching may occur and is normal, your player will ignore it.
Sure, it's the same sort of abrasion that most everyone else is suggesting, but it has an additional benefit: Depending on your personal hygiene you may not have toothpaste at hand (or at least not the right type) and you're unlikely to have Brasso. But, being a geek, you may well have a Dremel. And you just might have a soft cloth wheel for it - if not, they're like two dollars at the local hardware store. If you do, fire it up at about half-power and go gently and consistently from the center to the rim. It takes maybe a minute. The disk will look like hell, and you'll need to wash it with soap and water after, but it'll play.
Note: Do NOT use a felt wheel. That's not in big-assed letters for a reason, it'll chew through the disk faster than you can say "irreplaceable."
A local CD Warehouse store (sells used CDs) that my neighbor owns uses a large cloth wheel mounted on a disc-grinder type aparatus and pink baby lotion. CDs come off looking like new and working like new every time with minimal risk of damage during the cleaning process.
I use Displex.
Even tho its meant for cell phone screens, it works well on CDs.
I've got a large music CD collection (1000+) which I keep stored in their cases most of the time - since I've ripped all of them, unless I'm spending some time listening on the house hifi, then I generally play the rips rather than the originals. I do have CDs going back to the mid-80s, I've not yet come across one that has degraded to the point of failure but there are a few of my CDs that have silver-coloured backs (printed with black writing) that are starting to go a pale coppery colour around the circumference. They seem to play just as well though. A friend of mine (also a CD and hifi buff) did have a problem with one CD where it was starting to develop pinprick faults across the surface of the coating. Has anyone else ever witnessed a CD failing through "natural" degradation? Now that some of them can be 20+ years old, it's interesting to see how well they stand the ravages of time, even if pretty much unplayed and left in their cases.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I had the same problem with some really old cd's. I asked a friend who mentioned that he used any car wax that has Carnauba Wax in it. You may have to apply four or five coats to smooth things out a bit, but it will be "fixed' enough for a cd rip utility.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail
One of my Reason 3 cds was scratched pretty bad and I was unable to read the data from it. (Sorry about the preposition grammar mistake.) On a recommendation from a friend I used some generic furniture polish (Food Lion brand) and rubbed a small amount with a micro-fiber cloth from the center out over the scratches and it has worked great for over a year now. It also has a faint lemony scent now.
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition. - Adam Smith (1723-90)
Pledge is what our computer forensics lab uses on damaged disks they want to read. Either way I would try non abrasive tips before abrasive ones (i.e. Toothpast)
Polish the disc with Pledge spray funrniture polish. It is a fine wax that fills in the scratches and yet is transparent enough to allow a read. It will last long enough to get a read for copy. I has never fails me.
It looks bad when you're done but it works. Auto rubbing compound works, too.
It's probably not the only tool out there, and it is Windows-only, but I've retrieved remarkably hacked-up CDs using Exact Audio Copy. I've retrieved perfect tracks from disks that sounded awful and looked like they had been sandpapered. It sometimes took hours to do on really bad disks, but it worked.
It's free for non-commercial use.
You don't need a fancy machine. The bottom line is that if the scratch is on the bottom, and it doesn't go too deep, you can polish away some plastic to make the cd readable again.
If the scratch is on the top, and deep enough, there is no way to repair the cd. You can tell if it is a top scratch by holding up the cd to a light and looking through with with top side facing you. If you can see light coming through scratches, you have top scratches.
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=file.iso bs=2048
I would just like to note that, back around 1982, (before they actually become ubiquitous) CD's were touted as "longer lasting than LP records" since the read "head" never touched the surface. Oh, well.
Aluminum Oxide paste is the best thing I have found. You can get it from various electronic and retail stores (Usually marketed for Disc repair). Unlike toothpaste, Aluminum Oxide wipes clean without the sugary haze you can get from toothpaste.
Scratch-X works fine for this application, and is cheap. Be sure to use their (Maguire's) foam pad, though. Otherwise you'll end up making more scratches on the disk.
The banana method works great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo9y7jjoWKs
a study of attempts to find some household cure for scratched discs. The claim was (I never tried to verify it) that clear hair gel could fill the scratches and make the disc readable. Not a permanent fix, of course, but if true, cheap and harmless.
I too have tried many store bought devices with little to no luck. What I find works the best is the toothpaste method that has already been talked about. Rub it on the shiny side and then rince in water. What I have to add is that you should try it with a GET toothpaste first, it is less abrasive. If that doesn't work use standard toothpaste and if that doesn't work I would let a professional give it a try.
We have kids, so I've seen a LOT of this between the movies, Xbox games, CDs, etc. I tried the commercial dr-fix-it products and found they were weak at best and only useful for removing the faintest of scratches.
What I did, which carries some risk (with great power...) was go to my local Home Depot/Lowes and purchase:
* bench grinder ($35)
* buffing wheels, high/low density ($20)
* plastic rouge paste ($5)
* plastic polish paste ($5)
After putting the buffing wheels on the grinder, I took one of my worst discs which was scratched beyond belief. I think the kids left it on a table covered with sand and then sat on it and moved it about.
Anyway, start with the low-density pad and some plastic polish. Only buff a section for one or two seconds at a time, keep rotating the disc. Make the buffer scrub from center to the outside edge. If the low-density doesn't work, try the high-density pad. Put the plastic polish/rouge stick against the wheel for a second and then work the disc around.
Once you think you've gotten the worst of the scratches out, finish off with the low-density wheel and the plastic polish. Wipe clean with a soft cloth and water if necessary.
I've restored 50 or 60 games and movies this way. Takes 5 - 20 minutes depending on damage.
WARNING: push too hard or move too slowly and the surface of the polycarbonate will overheat and TEAR. You cannot fix a torn surface, that disc is now trash.
Good luck.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
Perhaps I should sprinkle iron filings into the toothpaste prior to applying it to the floppy. Magnets work well on iron filings, so I know they'll work well with a magnetic medium.
I suppose the iron-toothpaste mix could get stuck in the floppy drive, but I can just pull it with a big electromagnet, like the ones they use to lift shipping containers.
Then I will be able to read the floppy disks quite well. A happy ending! :)
Thousands are enslaved every day. A River of In
FUD
Wiping outward vs wiping in circles makes no difference!!
The idea behind this is that you don't want to damage any other data near (along the spiral) the unreadable part.
The idea is that data, and the CRC data, is stored sequentially along the spiral, and that wiping in a circular motion will damage more data in a given sector.
However, when you're wiping with your fucking finger or even some sort of small foam/cloth tool, you're rubbing the shit out of the damaged area, and everything around it.
If you wipe outward (radially) over a fucking scratch, you're still wiping over the damaged data and all of it's CRC data and all of it's neighboring sectors.
This was true with CDs, even truer with DVDs, and even truer with BluRay/HD DVD.
The basic premise behind this bullshit is that wiping your disc will damage it.
Wipe in whatever fucking direction helps remove smudges and smooth out divots and scratches. Remember to view your work STRAIGHT on like the laser does.
I've used pro CD fixers and they work. but they can sometimes be a little brutal. I almost always use Turtle Wax and a yellow duster, I've fixed data CDs which can be a lot more picky about releasing data from scratched surfaces.
Several months ago there was a slashdot post that TDK has these cool coating materials for CDs, where you can drop a screwdriver on it, from the hight of a table, and it won't even scratch... It had something to do with blueray discs, that got scratched too easily...
Just don't go through all the effort just to burn it back to a cheap CDR, which will "fade" in a matter of months (personal experience...)
Also, since you actually own the CD, download the songs from emule or something, at least for a short term solution. It's perfectly legal if you own the CD. But you probably know that, since you read slashdot.
As for the car: use mp3 in someway, it really does the difference in terms of library, jitters, and waiting times...
My kids have scratched tons of DVDs/CDs, and using pledge to polish them has worked every time.
FWIW, I've been using the Skip Dr device for years, and it's done a great job for me, 100% success on perhaps a dozen or two discs. Customer reviews on Amazon also appear positive overall.
If you're dealing with truly irreplaceable and valuable discs, though, you might want to use a professional service - it surely doesn't make sense to buy a professional-quality device for use with your own collection, unless you plan to use original media and store them in a bag of gravel for the indefinite future.
Working as a jeweler some time ago I used some watch crystal polish and the lowest speed on the buffer to clear up stacks of my CDs.
Crystal polish is pretty cheap but will likely take longer to acquire than several of the other abrasives mentioned here.
It also helps if you have one of these babies!
http://www.dvguru.com/2006/10/03/the-dvd-rewinder/
After you're done rewinding it be sure to get some monster cables and wooden stereo nobs to enjoy the new rich sound from rewinding your DVD!
Side note:
I am currently a Prince in Oklahoma and have over $55 million dollars in my savings account at the Royal Bank of Oklahoma but I need $1000 to help me get it. I am willing to share this bounty with you if...
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Seriously if they are too damaged to rip with cdparanoia then get some paint and body supplies some fine to extremely fine grit wet sanding paper, some polishing/buffing compound, and wet sand the cds out... first with like an 800 grit, then go to 1000 or 1200 and then use the polishing compound and finally wax it... then rip the CD's to at least two copies and store the originals and first copy safely.
This is the job that things like skipDR are trying to do, but they do it extremely poorly and in a very non-uniform way, Use common sense, don't set the CD down on a hard surface but either hold them in one hand or put it down on a folded up terry towel when sanding... Only sand wet, you have to make sure you get wet sanding paper and have a small container of water for dipping the paper in. Never, NEVER NEVER use a synthetic cloth to polish plastic. Get a nice clean cotton cloth (a brand new white T-shirt will work too) for polishing.
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
I have been using the Skip Doctor family of devices since they were direct via Internet only. It works well if you follow the directions and take the time to do it right. It's not going to fix every scratch, but it's going to make it playable.
Skip the toothpaste and power drills. Pick up the manual Skip Doctor and have at it.
I put toothpaste (without baking soda) and a couple drops of water on first and use a small circular motion with my finger for a couple minutes. After I rinse it off, I spry on some Pledge furniture polish spray and wipe it off with a soft cloth. I use this on Netflix DVDs all the time.
Have you considered asking how much for the BlockBuster guys to do it for you? Any used video game shop will have one of those machines, and will charge a doller or so to fix up your disc for you. So, unless you have over 250 scratched-up discs, which your post would lead me to beleive you don't, I don't think it's worth buying one.
Am I the only one who thinks "optical disc" should not apply to CDs and DVDs because it was once nearly synonymous with magneto-optical?
I've had some success with a kind of oil that you smear across the cd-surface and then dry off, leaving a very thin film.
It was sold as something that would "enhance the audio quality" and "make the sound crystal clear" and such extravagant claims.
This is, of course, pure bullshit but I bought it to see if it could save my old scratched cd's, and it does make them more playable.
It's not permanent and not perfect, but it got them through EAC with a lot less errors.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
I don't understand why people have this fixation with long-term ownership of media.
When a disc begins skipping, or scratching, it is time to replace it.
Downloading the song/movie/etc is not appropriate, you must re-purchase the media.
Media is designed to have a certain life cycle, after a certain time, you should repurchase it.
Think of media as something consumable. you have a certain number of "views", and then it essentially degrades, and you should either discard it, or repurchase it if it is worth it to the consumer.
This ensures everyone is fairly compensated.
There used to be a CD treatment called Finyl that you sprayed on CDs to change their refractive index and get more light through to the metal layer. Though it seemed like snake oil, I bought some and found that it frequently stopped scratched CDs from skipping. I also have a relative whose DVD player was very particular and would reject certain discs for no discernible reason. Once the discs were sprayed with Finyl, they played fine. If you can track some down, it may just let you play your discs again.
I sell premium quality, cold-pressed nose grease by the bottle, just for this purpose. If you have a large CD collection, you'll appreciate the reduced wear and tear on your nose.
I'm such a nerd. I immediately thought of this as a Star Wars reference: "This is not the toothpaste you're looking for..." I was wondering how this might be considered funny, and then...
The CB App. What's your 20?
They keep arguing that we're buying a license to the music. As such, since the medium they have delivered this to you is obviously flawed (cannot stand up to a reasonable amount of use), they should be obliged to replacing the medium with a new one at their cost. Right?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
FUD does not mean "false" or "myth" or "urban legend". The OP was not spreading Fear, Uncertainty or Denial. Stop using it that way.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Many years a go I went round my mates house and he had a cd player that had 5 lasers in it. This seemed to help since at least one of the lasers could pick up a reflection off a very badly scratched cd's. It was a very expensive player though.
My XYL does this, and it works like a charm. Alas, with our dirty industrial-era air, the silver tarnishes up again rapidly (silver is quite chemically active). I've occasionally wondered how difficult it would be to spray-coat the display pieces with clear lacquer to keep-em bright; I suspect the answer is, "Very, very difficult if you want to get decent-looking results."
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Yep. Wouldn't have believed it, but a friend showed me a trick she discovered by accident.
Just rub the scratch with an ice cube for a few moments. Remove any excess water, quickly re-insert and the disk has a good chance of being able to be read. Should give you enough time to rip the track(s) with your favourite software (many have already been mentioned).
Good luck!
You already paid for the music,
download it from somewhere.
If RIAA comes after you, you'll
have the originals.
You know, I had very mixed results. My first Skip Doctor I got years ago, worked like a charm and fixed every disc I threw at it, save one. Even the one I couldn't fix totally, still improved, (I could listen to all but one track as opposed to 4 that were unusable before running it through)
At some point, it got broken and a few years later, I got another one, and it did not fix a single disc, even lightly scratched ones. Ones I was able to repair by hand with a regimen of auto paint paint polishing compounds. So maybe it's a QA issue, or they just got cheap with subsequent revisions of it, or who knows, maybe I was lucky the first time.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Haven't tried it, but it might be worth a try:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/16016
I don't know what sort of stories you heard, but I've had nothing but success with the SkipDoctor products. I've rescued at least a dozen CDs (audio and game) that were scratched and unreadable.
http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/SearchDetail.asp?productID=20418 The Skip-Away Repair Pro System's patent-pending OptoClear process uses a combination of heat and pressure to recondition the surface of damaged discs without using messy polishing pastes and without removing any disc material. When a disc is inserted for repair, it's protective plastic layer is heated, making the surface malleable. Then pressure is applied to repair its damaged surface. It's fully automated and takes just 3 minutes. Includes buffing wheel, coolant cartridge and AC adapter. Discs not included. Please note: While the Skip-Away Pro can be used with DVDs and HD DVDs, it is not compatible with Blu-Ray Discs.
If they've got the machines, and you've only got a few disks to do, why not ask pretty please if they wouldn't mind?
If you've got a bunch, give the minimum wage kid at the counter a twenty.
Years and years and years ago, when CDs were new, possibly before you were born, Consumer Reports did a quick review of a product that was supposed to repair scratches on CDs, by spraying it on and buffing. There conclusion was that it did work. But they also noted that it seemed rather like a liquid wax, went out and bought Turtle Wax, and concluded that also worked, for 1/10th the price for much more product ;-)
Personally, I'd first buy a used [insert favorite "artist" to diss here] CD, scratch the heck out of it, and try this on it. If you've got a lot and you're really paranoid, you might try a cheap external CD reader in case the wax is bad for the reader.
The buffing method mentioned earlier works very well (I used to work in a machine shop, and do it myself regularly), but it can be very dangerous.
If you go that route, you need to wear proper safety equipment (safety glasses, face shield), and make sure you wear long pants and a short sleeve shirt.
What I have actually had a lot of luck with is the "cd scratch repair" fluid from Hastings. This is much easier, cheaper, and safer than the buffer method (although not quite as effective).
It is basically a mild abrasive suspended in a liquid. I pour it on the CD, and then use a soft cloth to rub it in a circular pattern around the surface. This is a very effective method.
I would not use toothpaste because that may contain chemicals that can attack the polycarbonate plastic and degrade it over time. The scratch remover is just a simple mechanical abrasive, and wont chemically attack the plastic.
If it is a minor scratch, polish it with Turtle wax. I think this fills in the scratches, and is enough for me to rip them as a general rule.
If that is not enough, i switch to Brasso, and gently use it as the destructions suggest for metal. You must be careful, and not over do it, as this actually removes the plastic coating. If the scratch is deep enough and actually hits the media, you are most likely screwed in my experience.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
You know, I've always wondered why there isn't some decent pairity on the data for optical disks? With Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, there should be more than enough space to implement this on all but the most packed full versions. I don't know how badly this would affect read performance, but I'm certainly willing to wait an extra second or 3 of loading to avoid losing the entire data set.
Old English dusting spray
I've restored several disks using carnuba wax. I found it suggested on the internet. I don't always get 100% improvement, but I've taken several DVDs from "unwatchable" to "has a few glitches in a scene". I've had some CDs go from "doesn't play several tracks" to "plays".
Obtain a SCSI CDROM + cheap SCSI card + SCSI cable. (I recommend the Adaptec AHA2940; can be had for ~$20.)
A 6x SCSI CDROM (in my own personal experience) can read/recover discs that other (IDE) drives cannot. Also try reading the disc at 1x speed.
Won't help with DVD, but quite good for audio CDs, especially with cdparanoia.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
I used Turtle Wax or Rain-X.
Many DVD rental places have the $250 disc cleaning machines and will buff a disc for you for a nominal fee.
I have some cloth-backed abrasive material from Micro-Surface that is used for high-gloss wood finishes and polishing acrylic and high-impact plastics (like aircraft windows). They come in grits from about 600 to about 12000 (yes, 12k). The highest grits feel almost like chamois.
At any rate, you should be able to manually polish discs with these abrasives, starting at whatever grit gets rid of the deepest scratches, then successively moving to finer grits (mmmm, I love grits) until you get a decently polished surface. Even the SkipDoctor (which has worked well for me from time to time) doesn't give a mirror finish. You don't really need that for decent CD player operation.
Find the stuff here.
Get to know the person behind the counter at the rental store - become a regular customer, talk movies, etc. Then ask nicely if they'd care to run a couple of discs through the repair machine.
Those who have telepathy have no need to RTFA.
Most of them around here disc resurfacers and they charge like $3 a disc or something to repair cds and dvds
I had the same problem a few years ago with an irreplaceable disc that had scratches. What you need to do is fill the scratches with something that mimics the optical properties of the plastic. I found that sunflower oil worked best:
Spread a drop of sunflower oil on the scratches and gently rub it open with a piece of kitchen tissue-paper or toilet paper until the whole cd is covered with it. Take a new piece of tissue and remove the excess radially: wiping from the inside out and back. Repeat this a second an third time with fresh tissue to get all oil of the surface. The scratches will be filled with oil and the cd is ready for error-free copying to the HDD.
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
I saw a pro disk resurfacer at Comdex many years ago, and after a great deal of interrogation the guy trying to sell his gizmo admitted it's just a buffer that uses regular off the shelf car polish, and a good amount of pressure. I've never had any success with toothpaste, and sadly I don't care for my car, or cd's enough to warrant the car polish. I tried the toothpaste on my Freespace 2 disk which looked like a diagram for cloud computing on the silver side, no luck, still doesn't work, and looks much worse than before.
And if you didn't already know, if you can see pinholes of light through your disk, there's no recovering that portion of the disk, it's simply not there. This usually only happens with cheap CDR's but I have a few originals who's thick label has worn down past the data layer.
How odd. Just last night I was reading an older issue of Wired magazine (16.03 / March 2008) and it had a review of four disc cleaners. I can't find it online though, but you can try starting here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/issue/16-03
One simple rule for its versus it's
there is a better and free way to recover damaged optical disks. http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html "GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool. It copies data from one file or block device (hard disc, cdrom, etc) to another, trying hard to rescue data in case of read errors. Ddrescue does not truncate the output file if not asked to. So, every time you run it on the same output file, it tries to fill in the gaps. The basic operation of ddrescue is fully automatic. That is, you don't have to wait for an error, stop the program, read the log, run it in reverse mode, etc. If you use the logfile feature of ddrescue, the data is rescued very efficiently (only the needed blocks are read). Also you can interrupt the rescue at any time and resume it later at the same point. Automatic merging of backups: If you have two or more damaged copies of a file, cdrom, etc, and run ddrescue on all of them, one at a time, with the same output file, you will probably obtain a complete and error-free file. This is so because the probability of having damaged areas at the same places on different input files is very low. Using the logfile, only the needed blocks are read from the second and successive copies. The logfile is periodically saved to disc. So in case of a crash you can resume the rescue with little recopying. Also, the same logfile can be used for multiple commands that copy different areas of the file, and for multiple recovery attempts over different subsets. Ddrescue aligns its I/O buffer to the sector size so that it can be used to read from raw devices. For efficiency reasons, also aligns it to the memory page size if page size is a multiple of sector size. " I've used it successfully to create perfect iso images of original CDs from damaged physical media. It's better than using EAC or similar secure mode rippers because ddrescue can run on any platform, it doesn't require windows or wine, there's no limit to how many runs it can make, and it doesn't matter if the process is interrupted.
I have used Displex on many disks, basicly it's a polishing compound designed for plastics http://www.displex.com/polish/english/index.htm It removed all the scratches that I have had on cd's and phones.
...fills scratches on more than just cars and trucks.
Me too -- except that I was thinking "That's not toothpaste. It's a space station."
I use the micro mesh sanding pads that I also use for finish work on the Lathe - you can get them online from Rockler or from your local Woodcraft store (I'm sure there are plenty of other sources.)
they range in grit from 1100 to 12000, after the 12000 grit pad the surface is near perfect.
I then copy and duplicate the disc, some scratches are deep enough that you take a significant amount of plastic away. But for me the point is to make it readable, not a permanent repair (though I do get that on occasion)
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
I've used brasso and a lint free cloth to repair almost unreadable disks (mostly ps2 games) in the past, works every time, though it can take some work.
Blazing Spiders
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/gadgetreviews/magazine/16-08/pl_test
The best of the bunch was the Venmill Skip-Away Pro, which actually heats up the polycarbonate, then smooths it out - "like ironing the wrinkles out a shirt", to use the vendor's analogy. At US$500 retail it's not for the budget-conscious though.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I actually came up with the Mother's method back when I had a 2940, my first cd burner and a second scsi cdrom drive. It was surprising what they could read, but if trying to make copies of ISOs, they'd often peter out on hairline scratches.
I recall reading somewhere that this works because the timeout on SCSI is handled differently, so it just keeps grinding away til it has the data, rather than giving up. Might be settable on the SCSI controller??
I'm also wondering if something like Ghost could be used in "get every last bit" mode. With Ghost, I managed to copy all the data 100% INTACT from a failed HD (disk surface apparently had a major problem, as even low-level disk tools would not touch it), tho it took a full day to pull 200mb of data.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Aleratec 240131 CD/DVD Repair Kit Plus
That is what we use to repair all of the scratched netflix dvds we get. It works pretty well. Most work with one cleaning, sometimes we do up to three, but normally by then we realize that it is scratched beyond repair.
Just "coincidentally" the current Wired August 2008 issue has review of 4 models of disk repair appliances. The best one goes over $500, but they list a Maxell Pro Disk Fixer for $50 that might fill the bill. Note that the weblink doesn't contain the actual article (yet), since this issue is still in print.
We are the 198 proof..
You can't repair scratches through the media, though... if you see light when you hold the disk up to a light, you're out of luck.
But for surface scratches, you can get them fixed for a couple bucks per disk (less in bulk). Google for "cd repair service" and you'll find a lot of them.
Go get yourself some Brasso. Shake well, apply with an old cotton cloth (or I've used paper toweld but I prefer cotton cloth) and rub in small circular motions over the scratched area while pressing down a bit. Keep the thing damp, don't let the Brasso dry out. Apply more brasso as necessary.
Rinse off and check occasionally.
I found a DVD on the side of the road once that had clearly been run over a few times and had horrendous scratches on it. I got it to playable condition with Brasso.
Of course, if there's a scratch on the label side that penetrates the silver layer, you're fsked, the data is gone.
I kind of thought it was ... the whole: ..." bit.
"That's no moon
CDs store information in semiredundant form, so a single scratch can often be worked around. Radial scratches (from hub outward) are easier to correct than lateral or concentric scratches. Scratches caused by a physical problem in your drive that carves a ring in the disk are usually unrecoverable. Look through this thread for many options for software that is "persistent" - keeps trying to reread a bad block until it gets it right. Most OS's will dump out on the first or second failed attempt.
BEWARE this is not foolproof. I have had to do this on many occasions, and I often had to write the sw to do it. "keep reading it until you get it right" has one fatal flaw. If you shoot craps too badly, you can get a CRC match on a bad read. The last recovery I did had a single byte CRC (8 bit) and I let it work on it for about 20 minutes before it got the block, but it was corrupt anyway. (1 in 256 odds of random data passing an 8 bit CRC) Rereading really screwed up media produces random results, and eventually one of them is going to match the CRC. This is assuming the damage is inside the data block, and isn't the result of a trashed address block, in which case you are unlikely to ever get a good read since it can't FIND the sector to read it.
As for alternatives, if you have a label side scratch, (top) that's where the data is. So lost label = lost data. I've seen three people come to me with disks that had the labels partly (or completely!) peeled off, asking if I could recover it. "uh, no." The one had peeled off the label because it was coming up. So you can recover it right? Um, what did you do with the label? Threw it in the trash can. Oh, that's where your data is... did it ever occur to you that having a now completely transparent CD may not be a good thing? heh... people think the label is there for decoration only. I've also read military security manuals that say to take a sharp object and carve scratches in the silver (bottom) side of a CD if you are being overrun. duuuh. I do hope they've corrected that by now.
Anyway, if the scratches or scuffs are on the bottom, you can sometimes get by with either water or oil. It fills in the valleys made by the scratches, and sometimes allows you to read the disk, sometimes with trouble but doable. Use a disposable drive as you will be spreading cooking oil or whatever all over the inside of the drive. Don't slather it on, just a few drops wiped around with a paper towel can fill in the damage.
There are several commercial "disk buffer" handheld thingies you can use to buff out scratches. Some are battery/plug powered, some are hand crank. They can produce some of the most surreal spiral patterns on the disk, but to my surprise they can be effective. The bizarre marks they make on the disk the drive doesn't seem to mind so much as the scratch that the process removed. ymmv. You can get these where music is sold, online or brick-n-mortar. One friend of mine that has a good 1k CDs swears by his. I think part of the reason they work is they freak out the drive and force it to drop into its lowest speed read mode to read what it sees is a seriously screwed up disk, and the slower read process can make it more tolerant of errors. Yes the drive should already spin down a bit when it runs into trouble, but that makes it STAY in 'trouble' mode the whole read.
Or you can try a commercial place if it's data you really need back. I don't know if places like drivesavers or totalrecall do optical media but worth a call. If they don't, they should be able to point you to someone that does. That stuff's very expensive. (getting away under a grand would be a deal) We've dealt with both of them and more, and it's somewhat random who can recover what. Both have sent stuff back to us saying "totally unrecoverable", only to be sent to the other and gotten 100% back, so shop around, especially if they do "no recovery, no charge" work. Heck, I've recovered data off a smashed flash drive that experts said was hopeless.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Find the torrent, download...Anyone asks, you copied it from your CD before it got scratched to hell. I doubt if you will be got after as you have paid the rights for the music...although current day USA legistlation may make this a very grey area.
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
I've heard of people having luck with Turtle Wax on audio CDs. I have never tried any of these methods myself, though.
I own a professional resurfacing machine, and I use it for all optical media. I often resurface items for friends and co-workers at $3 per disc. Not alot when things are irreplaceable, or cost upwards of $400 for high end software. Maybe someone you know has the same type of connection.
... No, really. Toothpaste. http://lifehacker.com/software/cds/macgyver-tip-fix-scratched-cds-with-toothpaste-155741.php It works!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I also heard that car wax applied the same way as the example way above using toothpaste (from the inside outwards) would also help restore a disk. Try this on a replaceable disk first.
Why don't you get a part time job at the local blockbuster? Work there for two days (@ 5 hours per shift), then bring in all your damaged disks and repair them while you are standing around. Then you're getting paid to fix your disks!
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
I know a sweet store that sells computers and repairs CDs. I've had around 10 CDs repaired from there and all of them come back fantastic. Obviously, they cannot fix CDs that have damage to the aluminum layer.
Skunk-A-Rific! Computers
They use frames....ugh. So you have to navigate to the CD Repair link on the left side.
Seriously. I've had great success with Turtle Wax. Just put a coat on the data side of the disc, let it dry, and buff it off with a lintless cloth. Should be enough to rip the tracks.
-= Person
1. Get a job at Hollywood Video. 2. Fix Your Disks 3. Collect Paycheck 4. Quit
for minor skipping, someone once told me to throw the disc in a toilet (empty & clean) and flush the thing once it touches bottom. The swirling of the water helped pick out dirt from the scratch grooves. dry the disc and try again. worked for what I needed.
More to the point, how many "irreplaceable" discs do you have to want to repair before $250 sounds like a good deal? What did your last cell phone cost? Your last sushi dinner?
What would the submitter sell one of these "irreplaceable" CDs for? $25? $50?
Breakfast served all day!
...my how far we have come. :^)
I'm sure there are disks that are even beyond Disk Doctor, but I've had good luck rescuing 4 different disks that wouldn't even play on a computer (a Mac with iTunes in my case).
Having said that, importing to iTunes using the error correcting features of your CDROM would be my first recommendation. (Turn on error correction in the iTunes options (Advanced > Importing)....fyi, I think iTunes works in WINE/CrossOver, so use it that way if you don't have another good option for error correction and you're on Linux.) If it works and the errors are fixed, I'd still make sure you rip to a lossless format and burn a fresh hardcopy.
The Disk Doctor would be my second choice since it actually alters the disk. Having said that, I've had 100% success on the 4 attempts where I've used it to recover a CD. FYI, DD actually abrades the play-surface of the disk, so it will look aweful when it's done doing its thing. I guess to a laser it looks "good" though - at least better than a scratch. Again, I would rip to a lossless format and burn a new hardcopy if this works.
Hope you have good luck with it!
-Matt
Somekind of magnetic storage in some covering like a old floppy disk is the best way.
DVD and Cd will always be a problem with scratching. Rentals = mad as hell when they skip.
Toothpaste = sucks.
Google = "repair dvd or cd" and you will get the old banana remedy. LOL.
We need to GET RID of this optical medium shit that is easily destroyed.
I worked at Blockbuster for a couple of years, and you learn a lot about scratches there. Most scratches on discs are just surface scratches, and have not actually affected the data at all. For no reason I know of, other than the fact that it's yellow and light is, of course, yellow (haven't you seen a light bulb?), a highlighter glossed over on the scratches, after it dries, will make your disc play a lot better.
Also, you might want to consider trying to rip the CD's with the cheapest, oldest CD-ROM drive you can find. The newer ones tend to have higher energy readers, which, contrary to expectations, are more likely to pick up scratches and skip than the cheaper drives.
For disks which only have minor scratches, rub a plain wax candle all over the surface, radially. Once covered, buff it with a smooth cloth (I usually use my cotton T-shirt). The wax fills the scratches well enough to read them, usually. If this doesn't work, try the toothpaste trick but the wax trick is non-destructive.
"I've heard great things about JFJ devices that are seen on the counters of most Hollywood and BlockBuster video stores, but even their consumer devices start at $250."
These devices are miracle workers and can even correct damage from "Disc Doctors". I work in an independent videogame store, and we own one of these machines. Unless you want to shell out $3000 for one, your best bet is just to goto a store that has one and ask about repairing your own discs. some places will allow it for just a few dollars per disc (or if you happen to work there, just bring them in when the boss isn't around).
these machines, however, can only repair so much. scratches that are too deep or on the back side spell doom for cds. Also, the manufacturer of the machine we own has yet to make a model compatible with blu-ray discs.
Novus #2 works wonders. Some of my friends use it quite successfully, this is exactly what it is intended for.
I got some disc-polisher long ago for $10 or so, it still works well. It doesn't get them to 100%, but enough that they do work.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
from macosxhints.com and others:
1. Take a piece of freshly cut banana and rub it all over the CD in a circular motion.
2. Using the banana peel, wipe over the banana residue with the peel in a circular motion.
3. Wipe the residue off with a clean, dry cloth for a few minutes.
4. Spray Windex onto the disc and wipe it clean with the clean side of the cloth you've used (in a circular motion).
5. Done, your disc should now appear completely new and unscratched.
I have used Rubber Cement with a fair degree of success... while it doesnt fix the scrathes themselves... it does seem to clean them out... This was tested on a unreadable Eagles CD, after the rubber cement, it played just fine...
Or if you have, say...a modern CD-ROM drive using ATAPI over IDE and it IS using SCSI
The best tool to use to clean and remove light scratches in a VMI buffer. They now have a personal version for around $250 called skipaway. http://www.venmill.com/products/skipaway.asp These products actually warm the disk instead of removing a small layer like many cheaper units.
The disk doesn't look too shiny afterwards but mine read perfectly. YMMV.
OTOH it's much easier to get a copy of eMule or BitTorrent and download a new copy. Most CDs are available in lossless compression formats. Problem solved.
No sig today...
Whenever I need a fresh copy I just download one.
Some of the kind people out there even make a second backup copy for me and store it in BitTorrent format. I don't know their names but thanks!
No sig today...
I only used the SkipDr once on a rental DVD that was damaged, and it worked just fine. After that I gave it to a friend who has not told me of any problems with it. I guess it depends on the seriousness of the problem.
I've used JFileRecovery to get files off of an extremely damaged CD and it worked like a charm. It allows multiple passes over a bad disk area, and also allows you to skip bad sectors. Never tried it for music CDs, but it's worth a shot.
A friend who flew small airplanes had a bottle of windshield polish that he used successfully. He gave me some for a disk that got stuck in the drawer of my CD player and it polished the scratch out very nicely.
Just take some car wax and wax up that cd.
I remember reading an article in Consumer Reports a few years back where they compared CD repair products and included good old Simonize Paste Car Wax... It worked better than the CD repair products... simply restores the smooth optical surface of the CD by filling in the scratches...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRUiN4aN43A
Available from most Pinball webstores. For example
http://www.marcospecialties.com/storeitems.asp?cc=CHEM-CLEAN
http://www.pinballheaven.co.uk/shop/index.php?currency=USD&cPath=cPath%3D26_29
I have used Skip Doctor to restore discs to playablility that were otherwise completely hosed.
I'm talking discs that spent 2 years bouncing around the glove box and who were completely hazed over.
The trick is following the instructions and being patient with the polishing step.
I've never had a disc Skip Doctor couldn't eventually - with a little work and patience - restore.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
If you don't mind MP3 quality audio, I'd say pretty much every disk is easily replaceable.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Most players, rippers, etc., can deal with a certain amount of scratching on the bottom (reading) side of the CD, and the polishing-type methods will probably fix those scratches that can't be read. What I've never been able to fix is a scratch to the top (label) side of the disc that goes through the reflective layer that needs to be mirror-like.
I did have a skip doctor, where I took a non-critical disk, sharpied it, and took a knife to it, creating fairly deep gouges. The skip dotor manages to grind down enough to make the disk readable again.
It's either that, or befriend an independent DVD rental place, and ask really nicely to have your disks refinished.
First, let me say that this isn't one of those "I've heard that this works..." things. I've actually used this method. I still do. It works. It's sounds crazy... but it works. It works with big, honkin', mondo scratches. It requires you buying a sander from Sears, but it's handy for other stuff, too... so, in the end, you've got yourself a nifty sander as well.
Next, you probably already know this, but the data is on the top of the disc. If you scratch the top, the data is gone and isn't coming back. So, check carefully to make sure that it's really a scratch on the underside.
First, go to Sears and get one of their "3D" sanders. It's a strange-looking 3-pad sander which is basically the sanding equivalent of a Norelco razor. They sell a variety of hook-n-loop sanding pads to go with it. Get the one with the buffing/polishing pads (get enough so that you have at least 6 of the felt-looking polishing pads) and also get the extra-fine sanding disc set (which has discs from grit 280 through 1000). Also, pick up a can of rubbing compound and a can of polishing compound.
[] Bring it all home and put one of your CD's face-down on some folder paper-towels.
[] Use a Sharpie or dark, permanent marker to mark the scratches so that you'll know when you've sanded them out.
[] Put the 400 or 600 grit discs on the sander and start sanding. Don't bother trying to get just that one spot where the scratch is... we're going to re-do the whole damn surface. So, hold the sander flat, and just move it around to get a good, even reduction of the surface. If you want, you can add some water to wet-sand it. Don't go too fast... no need to fling the water all over the place. Also, you don't want to overheat the sander OR the disc material. At this point, the disc will look like it's ruined forever. It's not. In fact, show it to some friends and see if they'll bet that it'll never play again.
[] If you're still not getting the scratch out, then you can go to a coarser grit.
[] Once it looks like you've sanded the scratch out, start moving through the finer and finer grits. It can be difficult to tell when you've gotten rid of the previous grit's scratches, so I usually draw big squiggles on the disc with a sharpie and then sand until they're gone... and then I do it again, and then I'll switch grits.
[] Once you've gone through the finest grit, get out the first set of polishing pads (the ones that look like yellowish felt) and put some rubbing compound on the disc and start polishing at a low speed. This can generate some heat and will dry up the compound pretty soon, so spritz some water on the disc to keep the compound working. Do this for a couple of minutes.
[] Now, clean all of the rubbing compound off of the disc, put the other 3 polishing discs on and do the same with the polishing compound.
[] Now, clean the disk off and put on the buffing pads (the ones that look like super-bushy white loop-velcro). You're going to do this one DRY and without any compounds or anything... just the pads. Go ahead and crank the sander up to higher speeds for this one... like 7 or 8 or so. You're going to generate a bit of static electricity and you'll be zapping yourself the whole time... just so you know.
[] After a few minutes of this, you should have a disc that is kinda hazy... but without any large scratches. Give it a play in your player. If it doesn't play right, then give it more time with the buffer. Or, if you still see some scratches, then back up to the sanding and get those scratches out.
[] Good luck.
Meguiar's Mirror Glaze polish is designed for removing hairline scratches from clear plastic (including polycarbonate, which is the plastic used in most CDs). It's also used in the flying world to remove scratches from plexiglass windshields. (Notice I said "remove," not "fill". I've never had a scratched CD or an airplane windshield that I wasn't able to get cleaned up with Mirror Glaze.)
None of my CD's have scratches. Here's the secret.
1. Remove packaging from CD. .ISO from the CD. Do not make 'audio copy' or 'CD copy' options, just create the .ISO .ISO
2. Remove CD from case.
3. Place CD in computer CD-Rom drive.
4. Use any number of common software to make an
5. Remove CD from drive.
6. Replace in case.
7. Store in secure, air-tight, waterproof, shock-resistant, flame-retardant box, safe, etc.
8. Insert blank CD into CD burner.
9. Create new CD from
10. Use this copy exclusively.
Oh, wait, I guess that method would make you a thief according to the RIAA. Their recommended method is to:
1. Place CD in microwave
2. Cook on High for 2-3 minutes or until melted.
3. Remove from microwave, let stand 3 minutes.
CAUTION! Product will be hot!
4. Purchase another copy from a full-price retail store.
5. RIAA recommends not buying from a pawnshop, as they do not make any money on it, and could possibly construe this as theft.
*Don't* try to use one of those cheap hand-held CD cleaner/scrubber machines. They don't work worth beans. But there is such a thing as a real resurfacer.
...), and then there's the expense. It's the kind of thing you'd only want to invest in if you have an ongoing need to resurface discs on a regular basis -- e.g., if you have a large collection of them that you lend out or rent out. To just do a small collection once, it's not worth it.
I work at a public library. We have a resurfacer (specifically, an EDR DiscChek). It does work fairly well. Many CDs and DVDs that were so scratched they wouldn't play at all have come out of this machine in like-new condition. It does have limits (e.g., if the backing's flaking off it can't fix that), but for typical scratch damage it really does work.
You probably don't want to buy one of these babies for your house. It's unweildy, for one thing (bucket of solution with a hose running up to the machine, bottle of the other solution with a tube running into the machine, drainage hose running out to another bucket, jugs of distilled water, four different kinds of pads, the thing weighs a ton,
But you might not have to buy your own. Once somebody invests in the machine, they have it, and may be willing to do more than just their own discs. Here, the library where I work actually offers a service wherein for $2 per disc we resurface discs for patrons. We don't advertise this, but when people ask... yeah, we do it.
You might ask around in your area and see if any of the libraries or video stores near you offer a similar service.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
The use of caustic soda as a CD cleaner is, as I have found, teh greatest and cheapest method evarz
Sometimes I use an aerosol floor wax like pledge. You can polish it in to the disc by hand or use a rotary tool like a dremel at low rpm. It seems to fill in those fine widespread scratches that look like fog. It's only temporary.
So hey...how do I fix them CRC Errors? Any good FOSS tool out there?
cheers,
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/08/03/1225222.shtml
It links to a page that no longer exists, but here is an archived version:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071102062929/http://www.om3ga.co.uk/2006/07/27/scratched-cds-no-problem/
I keep my CD's in their cases in a box in my closet. I burn a copy of each for playback, which I keep in a binder for convenient access and to take up less space. If the copy gets scratched, I just burn another.
If the RIAA were to come along and tell me I can't make copies for that purpose, I would say "sorry! won't happen again!" and continue to do so. As far as I'm concerned I own a license to the content for personal use indefinitely.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
I've always used Lemon Pledge. Spray some on the scratched side and rub it in real good with your finger. Then buff to a shine with a soft cloth. It works better than you might think and won't damage the disk.
My two cents worth is to use a high quality reader. Try to read the disks in a good DVD burner as the burners have good error correction built in, I have been able to read unreadable disks in a Pioneer DVD burner that other drives would not look at. There is no one answer to this, but you must have a quality drive to start with, then the software you choose has a fighting chance.
I had an OS X installation disc that looked like someone went skating on it. I took it to a used CD/DVD store expecting them to squirt it with something, spin it around and wipe it down. They stuck it in a resurfacing machine they said was worth $10K where it sat for 10 minutes. The disc came out immaculate and I was astonished. (These scratches were DEEP) Cost me $5
I've had very good luck with the Disc Repair Pro (got mine from Cyberguys). Just an automated polisher that uses a pair of polishing discs and a polishing compound. Pretty cheap too.
I have had great luck with the digital innovations motorized automax. have fixed the same CD several times in some cases. I tested digital audio gear in a factory for a couple of years, and now I work construction (low voltage electrical), so my CDs get pretty beat up. I have never had one that I couldn't fix in this thing.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
I used it on quite a few damaged CDs back when I actually carried the things around. I don't remember ever having a scratch that wasn't fixed this way. Also, as a bonus, there's no risk of making things worse. If it doesn't work, you're still free to try an abrasive as several people have suggested.
Lick the CD, while still wet you can copy it. Gross but works.
Armor-all.
No serious. It will restore disks that have been REALLY abused. At least restore them enough so that you can rip them.
Soak the disk down. Wet. Let it sit for 2-3 hours. Polish with a soft lint free cotton cloth.
Rip.
And if its still too damaged. One of those $5 disk polishers and some toothpaste will take out the worst scratches. Then re armor-all them.
It restored a cd that kicked around my garage floor for a year. Not perfect. but i managed to rip 95% of it back off with no errors.
I'd try ripping, then try cleaning and ripping again. He mentioned bad things about the Skip-Doctor series and he's only half right: the hand-crank models suck, but if you can find the old heavy-duty one (SkipDR MD Pro) you're far better off, it does a great job. The heavy motor helps you get a very smooth and reliable buffing; the hand-crank gives you an intermittent and unreliable-speed motion, which is what gave so many people problems.
Spray a little Armor All on and wipe with a soft cloth. The oiliness fills in the scratches
I fix my own, if they aren't too deeply scratched. It's time consuming, but, I have a LOT of patiences. I build (actually use to) scale plastic models, and sometimes the clear plastic parts are scratched from bouncing around the box. Depending on how deep the scratch, I will dry sand 400 grit, then wet sand 400 grit, and then switch to wet sanding 800 grit, taking it all the way down to (they call it) 1200 grit. After that I take some plastic polish (but you can use a light abrasive toothpaste), and polish with that. Then I'll usually give it a coat of Future floor wax. 99% of the time, the skips go away.
i usually use toothpaste to fill the scratches, somewhat some of them get to work!
This is hooey. CDs spread error correction data physically within the data stream -- enough so that if you have to hold a disc up to the light to see the damage, any data lost because of that damage completely recoverable. (Theoretically you could lose data equivalent to a hole about a tenth of an inch across, though anything that big would probably make the transport mistrack.)
http://www.applesaucepolish.com/
As someone that has probably resurfaced 20,000 disks in my life, here are a few recommendations. The JFJ Machines work well, but the supply costs are pretty high, if you go this route, dont use it for more than 10 seconds at a time, as the pad is very, very delicate, you can get a machine from them for 249 that includes a starter pack of pads, paper, and compounds The Fix A Disk machines (this guy invented the business) started at around 8 grand when I bought my first one, they are around 2 grand now, they use a wet sanding action and are the best on the market, Most used Video/Game stores will fix your disks for around 3 bucks each, and some will do it cheaper if you have over 40, most of them that have been in business awhile use a Fix A Disk machine Do NOT use a hand type machine, you wont be getting 3,000 rpm that way Toothpaste will leave a haze when used in a machine, and at over 2,000 rpm will actually enter the surface of the disk, not a good thing Lots of disks are ruined from the TOP side of the disk, hold the disk to the light and look for holes (from where the label is damaged) this type of damage can NOT be fixed if there is data in that area as the laser cant pick up the bounced back data Hope this helps, my first post here, and I normally cant type what I actually want to ;) fingers and brain dont alway match ;)
Its a Mac thing, you might not understand it
You could always try dd_rescue in Linux; it will keep going despite read errors. Been there, done that.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
If the scratches are on the label side of the CD, chances are you're SOL as the foil is just below the label and damage to the foil means scrap poly-carbonate. If they're on the clear side, it probably can be saved.
I've had good luck using a high quality, wax based, furniture polish. It fills-in the scratches, not buffing them out.
This worked for a CD damaged at a college party, the scratch was almost to the foil.
Good luck
you don't need boiling water to get it to work ( I don't know what temperatures are safe with those stones, though ).
Also, I believe the aluminum-oxide remains attached to the aluminum-foil.
( the aluminum-foil looks tarnished, after, iirc )
Either way, a quick buff of the de-tarnished silver, removes less silver than buffing it off does.
Cheers
Hair spray.
Cheap as dirt.
Removable.
Creates a clear protective layer that also fills the scratches with a material of roughly the same referactive index.
Can be removed with soap when it gets old and reapplied in seconds.
It works.
I konw this will sound crazy to you but here it goes. You'll need the following: One old and worn toothbrush (with bent/worn bristles) One tube of toothpaste. Apply toothpaste to the brush, wet the cd, and begin brushing the disc. The solvents in the toothpaste will smooth the scratches enough to breath new life into your disc. If it still skips, then I'm sure someone will have another tip. It sounded crazy when I first heard this tip, but I tried it on a disc that was unplayable. Once I saw a dramatic improvement (perfect playback), I did it to all my scratched discs and saved me money in buying replacements. I haven't bought a new copy over scratches ever since.
Where's my sock? There it is...
Weird, I immediately thought "It's a space-station"
Huh. I've used the exact same nose grease technique on black-and-white negatives. This should work, up to a point. I found personally that I only really had enough nose-grease to do maybe half the surface area of a negative (on a high nose-grease production day) so I'm thinking you must have one hell of a honker to do a whole CD.
My local Blockbuster offers a resurfacing service for customers' CDs/DVDs at a few bucks a pop, using their U-beaut expensive machine that makes it look brand new again. Perhaps your local video store also offers such a service, or would be prepared to do it for you if you asked.
This Stuff is the best I have used on polycarbonate plastics. I almost restored a very swirled CD when a drive failed and scarred it. The "clear side" was pretty nice, but the damage to the label side made complete repair impossible. I did get about 6 tracks of 9 restored with minimal "pops" where the data was too destroyed to make error correction fail. Before polish and clean it was 0 tracks and the drive spit it out as not a CD. The big issue is damage to the label side can't be fixed. And it is the thinner surface on CDs. DVDs "fixed" this by making the single layer discs be laminated between two polycarbonate disks. I have been tempted (since I replaced the CD that was horridly affected) to see if I can use something that does not damage polycarbonate but does react with the label ink to remove the label ink and see if common aluminum plastic paint would restore the label side. Just as an experiment mind you.
The other stuff I have wanted to try is the plastic lens repair material (often advertised on TV) and the "works with any paint color" scratch filler.
But for the best so far Aircraft/motorcycle wind screen cleaner an polish (and some brands offer a two step process to get really deep scratches out). Whatever you do, protect the label side while you clean or you'll do more damage than you repair.
Tjp
Thanks, saved for reference -- some day, gods willing, there will be a linux I can truly love!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
People keep arguing about this. I understand it stems from subjective experience with bad discs and objective knowledge of how discs are constructed and read.
1) Data is written in concentric circular bands that increase incrementally in diameter.
2) The laser tracks the bands as the disc spins.
3) A scratch within one of the bands that is consistently tangentially for a significant distance disrupts too much of the plastic surface to allow error-recovery because of light diffraction in the groove.
4) Wiping with most surfaces (except micro-fiber cloths and other similar substances) will generate scratches in the direction of wiping because most materials are inherently abrasive to plastic.
5) Wiping in tangential circles will create scratches precisely where they are not desired.
6) Wiping a tangential scratch in the direction that improves it best supersedes the rule to not wipe tangentially.
7) Abrasives (toothpaste, etc) work but only because you are lessening the depth of the scratches to minimiaze diffraction.
8) Putting a solvent on the disc will only rid the disc of oils or particular matter.
9) If you have buffed a disc with some form of polish that fills the scratches, using a solvent later (months or otherwise) will remove it, rendering the disc less readable than it was.
*********
10) A full process involves a solvent to remove debris and oil, an abrasive to remove a thin layer of plastic in scratched areas and a polish/oil/etc. to minimize the effect of brief voids on the laser light.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Turtle wax also does a great job of polishing cd's I have repaired scratches on many cd's (use a very soft cloth and a gentle circular motion) the best part is you get about 3 lifetimes worth for $5!
This is by far the easiest and most effective way to get *perfect* results out of the most damaged optical media! Video tutorial found here.
Walk softly and carry Doom assists.
http://www.cybergrass.com/Articles/021096.htm
Google is your friend d00d
Also, brass polish paste usually does the trick and it costs about 15$ or so :)
toothpaste is nice, but for some scratches it just doesn't do the trick.
And last but not the least... That's what you get for using crappy media... I still have Verbatim discs (the blue dyed ones) that are still good as new after 13 or so years of (ab)use ... So d00ds just go ahead and buy Traxdata and similar cheapass media :)
Ive tried various things like toothpaste, Brasso etc. I found that metallic T-Cut (finer than regular T-Cut) followed by a good quality car wax works best. Ive read NOT to use circlular motions but I find it best, as long as you dont follow the track of the data and use smaller circles (as if you were drawing the number 8 sideways around the disc) you should be fine. Use new cloths for each stage and check you havent got any dirt or grit on the cloths every so often (so you dont gouge out more plastic by scratching dirt into the surface).
I haven't actually tried this though:
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-remove-scratches-on-an-lcd-or-cd-with-an-egg-143178/
A better retry strategy has h2cdimage coming from the german computer magazine c't -- a very small console program which could be found at heise.de:
You can use several different drives to recover as much data/music as possible, since some drives may be able to recover sectors that others can nott access.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=779990#post779990
This seems to work.
Sand the disc with 2000 grit paper to remove the scratches, then polish with a foam pad and a good polishing compound. It will look like new.
The crazy hand-crank belt sander device works about 2/3rd of the time. A skipping disc is useless to me, so I am willing to risk it. The really bad problems I've had with CDs and DVDs are when the foil bubbles up, peels or is otherwise damaged.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I have tried once with car abrasive cream - on a non commercial - very nice children songs - totally ruined - CD: IT WORKED. Even if it was not "back new" I was able to perfectly copy the tracks and master a copy. For professional results the machine of Amazon I think is better... but for a couple of CDs, it will not be worse. Use cotton and very fine paste - or even toothpaste - thats slightly abrasive too (but probably not enough... I have read of it as a solution for removing scrubs from the visor of motorbike helmets).
They avoid the radial scratching technique and actually resurface the disk with their devices.
(disclaimer: I worked in their IT dept for a short while, but am no longer connected to them)
http://www.venmill.com/
My method for fixing scratched compact discs is very simply, however I've been able to fix what most other people and products has given up on.
Caution: Your thumb can get very hot.
1. Place your right thumb on the disc surface data area near the center of the disc.
2. Start moving your finger clockwise round the center no faster than an inch in a second. Keep the distance to the center.
3. Now start pushing as hard as possible with your thumb while still moving it.
4. Expand the circle slowly while you keep pushing, so that each data area is touched at least once with maximum pressure.
5. You're done. Play/copy/rip the disc.
Sometimes is also helps moistening the thumb before, or trying again with a little moisture.
Compact disc players and computer drives differ in ability to read from scratched disc. Try several in your home to find a good drive.
It's noteworthy that CD's plays from the inside and out, and most scratches tends to be at the end of the disc.
Also, I wouldn't use toothpaste, since it contains scratching elements.
Regards from Realzneo, Denmark, Europe.
If you have only a few cds that you need to restore I would recommend Brasso. I have used Brasso to restore cds and dvds to a readable condition. Place a small amount of brasso on the media and buff radially with a microfiber clothe. (I had always buffed in a circular motion, but recently found out it's better to buff in a radial direction. Something about missing information and signal correction...) Let the Brasso dry and wipe off in a radial direction. Repeat until the scratches are faint.
Note: This only works with light scratches and scuff marks. Anything deep or damage on the aluminum side is usually trash compactor fodder.
If the disc is scratched on the "top" surface, you may be SOL. The very thin top surface allows even small scratches to physically remove the reflective aluminum layer that actually stores the data. Top scratches are irreperable.
Scratches on the bottom surface can be carefully polished out, and generally won't affect the actual data stored on the disc. They just refract the laser in unpredictable directions that keep it from detecting the "bits" etched on the aluminum layer.
Go to your local video store. Many now have resurfacing machines. $3-5 per disc and it will be brand new. they use a machine costing a few hundred bucks that works great. Having tried EVERY other cheap product on the market, this is the only way to go and still keep your discs. I have resurfaced 100's od DVD's, CD's, and game discs with one of these machines.
Sorry if someone has already suggested this but there were too many posts to go through.
The Idols of My Youth, Reduced to Ringtones.
I've repaired CD's that suffered grit scratches, gently polishing with Brasso and a soft rag. Scratches don't need to be removed completely. Wash disk with dilute household detergent to remove all traces of Brasso, dry and try disk. Repeat several times as necessary, just be patient. Best of luck!
When I tried that the disk cracked and was destroyed.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
Man, you guys really are nerds. The post was about sticky white substances and porn and you guys think of robots and the Death Star?
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
There are a few disc repair service companies that I have tried, only one of them made the discs look and play like new again. They offer a "mail-in" disc repair service, but I usually just take them directly to the facility in Arizona, cause i live near the place. They charge $1 per disc, $2 for double-sided discs. Unless you feel like getting a work out, by using a hand cranked machine- this is the easiest and most effective way of taking scratches out of your discs. They also carry products that prevent scratches, scratch guards and jewel case liners. I forget the name of the company, it is in Chandler, Arizona. Check it out,
If you have one, put the CD on a lathe. Use a faceplate (and interpose a layer of cloth) to keep it flat and true, turn it at 100-200 rpm. Polish with a cloth polish wheel attached to a dremel-type tool, oriented so you're polishing radially.
Works like a charm, CD looks brand-new if done right. (Practice first and use a medium touch as too much pressure can overheat and melt the plastic.)
[Interesting: the captha is "wreckage"]
I have one more proposal that worked for some discs : clean gently the recorded surface, then put the disc in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. Wait for the ice to disappear and play. Only used with pressed audio CDs.