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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.
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.
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
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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
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?
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
Local artists that only ran a few thousand copies, and are no longer producing music?
That's how it worked before the internet, CD's or tapes was all they had for distribution and once those were gone, the band may as well never have existed.
I know I've got a dozen or so discs from the early 90's that fit that description, and I treat them better than I do myself. ;)
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....
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.
I've got an original UK Harvest release of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Sure, Dark Side has been released about half a billion times, but the sound quality on this is among the best. I'd as soon as not lose it, because they're very, very difficult to find.
Also nearly irreplaceable is my original release of David Sylvian and Robert Fripp's "Damage". It, too, was re-released, but with a different mix which is nowhere near as good as the original.
So there are SOME irreplaceable discs out there. Not everything is mass-produced, unfortunately.
Yes, the abrasive in toothpaste can help to polish out the scratches, but really (especially as these are valuable/irreplaceable discs) you should just get it done professionally.
I can't vouch for any particular company, but Googling "disc resurfacing service" turns up plenty of fairly economical options. There's no point spending a few hundred on a professional resurfacing machine, nor is there in risking doing it yourself with toothpaste or metal polish and a microfibre cloth, when you can pay a couple of dollars a disc and have them done by someone who knows what they're doing in a machine that probably cost a thousand or more.
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
Yes, those analog CDs really hold the waveform better than the digital ones, man.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
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.
I thought all toothpaste has some very mild abrasive in it.
That may well be. It's just that the poster has stock in a toothpaste company that does NOT produce a gel. All you gel using people are diminishing his retirement fund, and the fact that you have a brilliant white smile, fresh breath, and no cavities is just rubbing it in.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I've seen an industrial grade disc resurfacing machine that takes stacks of discs for polishing in a hopper - they cost MUCH more than a thousand (USD) and if you could have your discs treated in such a machine for a buck a piece, it'd be well worth it.
I've also done the toothpaste thing and there is a technique to it (not just randomly swirling it around) because what you are doing is making fine scratches with the paste abrasive and the lines must radiate from the center of the disc outward to be effective. I have restored unreadable discs to a state where data could be pulled from them - it's just good enough for last-ditch recovery, IMO - not something to count on using repeatedly.
When I think of FUD I think of OM NOM NOM NOM
(sorry)
I did worry about that, but amazingly, it didn't even rattle in the drive. The break was so clean that it wasn't immediately obvious -- neither I nor the librarian at the checkout counter noticed it, but it probably explains why someone had abandoned it on a table far from the CD rack.
Proved to be a pretty good foot-stompin' country album, so was worth the bother :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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...