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Effective Optical Disc Repair?
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:26 AM
from the persistent-doubt dept.
from the persistent-doubt dept.
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."
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cdparanoia (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:cdparanoia (Score:5, Informative)
Try ripping it with both cdparanoia and with Exact Audio Copy [exactaudiocopy.de] (Windows freeware that works well under Wine). Stuff that won't rip in one will often rip in the other.
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Re:cdparanoia (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:cdparanoia (Score:5, Informative)
You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about ripping discs from the guys at Chris Myden/UberNet. Not that I would ever have anything to do with such a network, that being illegal and such.
http://www.chrismyden.com/uber/ [chrismyden.com]
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I store backup copies of all my CDs on eMule (Score:5, Funny)
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!
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Re:cdparanoia (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it's not. Also cdparanoia has a well-documented CD-ROM caching issue which it currently does not defeat making the rips unreliable at best.
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Re:cdparanoia (Score:5, Funny)
Burn to new CD.
No need! This [amazon.com] is the absolute GREATEST optical disk repair device that I've found! It'll even repair cracked disks!
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Re:cdparanoia (Score:5, Funny)
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Toothpaste (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Toothpaste (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Toothpaste (Score:4, Funny)
Toothpaste eh? Working porn DVD and clean teeth, all in one swoop!
Oh man...
Please no "pearly white" comments to this.
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Re:Not Toothpaste (Score:5, Funny)
thats not toothpaste...
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Re:Not Toothpaste (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Toothpaste (Score:5, Interesting)
The way this works, by the way, is that white toothpaste contains fuller's earth [wikipedia.org], which is a very mild abrasive. This polishes the disk back to readability.
Use this as your last resort, only when EAC and cdparanoia have both failed.
Note also: if you hold the disk up to the light and see lots of pinholes ... the aluminium layer's fucked and you haven't a hope. I dunno if you can repaint an aluminium layer ...
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Slide case cover to left (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Iron Filings, Magnetism, and the Floppy Problem (Score:4, Funny)
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! :)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
agreed. In fact...that is sort of the POINT of a buffer. You heat up the paint, then move it across the scratch that you're trying to get rid of.
Re:Toothpaste (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Toothpaste (Score:5, Funny)
2. Place the CD on the chuck, tighten the chuck around a bolt and washer to keep it in place.
3. Clamp the drill in a bench vice.
4. Spin the CD at 30,000rpm
5. Hold an oily rag against the CD and polish away.
Disclaimer: I typed this message with two fingers.
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Re:Toothpaste (Score:4, Informative)
I'm surprised no-one has caught the humor that was hopefully intended in this post. If the intent wasn't humor, then it may have been manslaughter...
30,000 RPM is more than high enough to cause the disc to fly apart - let alone the shattering splinters that would result (and could cause lacerations, embedded chunks of plastic) if you pressed against the disc at anywhere close to that speed.
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Re:Why not GEL? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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NOVUS plastic polish (Score:5, Informative)
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 [amazon.com]
Blow Torch, Seriously (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Blow Torch, Seriously (Score:5, Funny)
That's gotta be some sort of Extreme Sports of disk recovery ...
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Re:Blow Torch, Seriously (Score:5, Funny)
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Easy (Score:5, Informative)
I've got a $5 solution.. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I've got a $5 solution.. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
This is probably off topic but I felt compelled to reply, never buff your silver. There's a super easy trick that companies don't want you to know. (IAAC) Get a container big enough for your silverware. Put aluminum foil in it, put the silver on top of it, fill with boiling water, sprinkle baking soda on top. The tarnished parts of the silver will disappear. It's an oxidation reduction reaction. Every atom of the silver will remain and it only removes the tarnish. No worry about scratches or wearing down the metal. I shine all my/my gf's/my family's silver jewelry and utensils this way. It only takes a few seconds.
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Re:I've got a $5 solution.. (Score:5, Informative)
As a fine jeweler, I must say that you pose an interesting solution. However, I don't think that the reaction with aluminum is going to help you, the wearer, much. After putting the jewelry back on, you can still leave aluminum oxide all over your skin, which is very much an irritant.
Also, some of the stones you put in there will absolutely turn to crap if you try that. Don't do it with aquamarines, emeralds, opals, coral, turquoise, or any other soft stone.
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Re:I've got a $5 solution.. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I've got a $5 solution.. (Score:4, Informative)
Al2O3, aka sand, is not an irritant. It is very stable chemically, and a very hard substance. The only known health problem with it is silicosis, resulting from breathing in lots of it into your lungs---totally does not apply in this case.
Hmmm... I think you are confusing aluminum oxide (Al2O3) [wikipedia.org] with silicon dioxide (SiO2) [wikipedia.org].
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Just a note (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Just a note (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, the lessons learned from Mr. T...
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Define Irreplacable (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Define Irreplacable (Score:5, Informative)
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. ;)
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Ask Nicely (Score:4, Interesting)
How about asking your local Hollywood or Blockbuster folks if you could run your few discs through their fancy machine?
Family Video (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Record Stores (Score:5, Informative)
Ask the record company/RIAA to replace it (Score:5, Funny)
Since you only license the material and do not own it, they should be able to replace the media for a nominal fee.
Aircraft Plexi Repair to the rescue! (Score:4, Informative)
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/ [sisweb.com]
Ask for a professional (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Skip Dr Works (Score:4, Informative)
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.
How to fix optical media (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Ask the RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Your skin oils and the buffing from the paper help remove or pad the sharp edges on the scratch, reducing glare from the laser. This helps the drive read the data immediately next to the damage and get more bits to process with reed-solomon, data which is usually obscured by the reflections off the damage.
I've used a fine-point sharpie to black-out a scratch, and the disc read perfectly after that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Toothepaste (Score:5, Informative)
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 [google.co.uk]" 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.
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Re:Toothepaste (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Toothepaste (Score:4, Funny)
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 :)
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Re:Frist post? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, those analog CDs really hold the waveform better than the digital ones, man.
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