Effective Optical Disc Repair? 554
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."
Toothepaste (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Blow Torch, Seriously (Score:5, Interesting)
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 ...
A lesson for the rest of us (Score:2, Interesting)
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?
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.
Re:Ask the record company/RIAA to replace it (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, this would probably make an interesting court case.
Re:Define Irreplacable (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
Re:Disc Doctor isn't all bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Ditto. The trick to using Disk Doctor is using LOTS of DISTILLED water as a lubricant (no tap water!), and being exceptionally careful to maintain a constant speed when turning the handle. Conceptually the device is the same as the toothpaste technique above, but it does a job of polishing the tracks evenly superior to anything you can do by hand.
When done, the disk will look like you've just destroyed it, but it should be readable. IMMEDIATELY rip all the tracks and burn yourself a replacement disk. Better yet, rip all the tracks and put them on an MP3 player. CDs are passe for playing, but they're economical for distributing music unencumbered by DRM.
Use high tech coated CDs next time! (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
Re:Scratch removal (Score:3, Interesting)
A used cd store near me does that, it works quite well for them. I brought them 15 cds which all produced several errors in EAC along with terrible AccurateRip results to see what they could do. They fixed EVERY SINGLE CD, errors removed in EAC and the CRCs each matched no less than 20 in AccurateRip.
If I ever get the balls I will do the same :)
Re:Toothpaste (Score:1, Interesting)
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 ...
On first thought I figured repainting the aluminum layer might not do any good. But on second thought if the pinholes cause problems with the reading process then perhaps repainting might do some good.
Any data lost in the pinholes is certainly gone but if the repainting allowed the remaining data to be read more reliably...
Might be worth it for someone more interested and able than myself to look into.
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?
Confirming that... (Score:3, Interesting)
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."
Re:cdparanoia (Score:3, Interesting)
cdparanoia uses older techniques that are not the state of the art in recovering data from physically damaged audio CDs. exact audio copy has been patched and upgraded repeatedly over the last decade, and its age and cruftiness finally become pretty burdensome.
for a modern, cruft-free secure audio extractor, take a look at rubyripper. it uses cdparanoia in a novel way to securely extract audio from damaged media.
personally, i am a fan of the digital innovations skip doctor. it won't fix a label-side scratch, but i can only think of a couple of discs with intact foil that i've not been able to repair with mine.
Re:NOVUS plastic polish (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the years I've tried toothpaste, a paste of Bon-Ami cleanser + water as well as several commercially sold CD scratch removers. All worked to some degree but nothing has worked as well as Novus #2, followed by a cleaning with Novus #1.
I also use Novus #2 to clean up laptop screens, especially touchscreens.
Whatever you choose to polish with, use a soft cloth; never use a paper product. Use a small amount on a fingertip-sized area of cloth and rub firmly in small, overlapping circles. Never let the dry cloth rub against the surface.
Re:Ask the record company/RIAA to replace it (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really. They are commodity goods SOLD (not licensed) off the shelf. Ever notice that every CD and DVD advertisement, store kiosk, or print ad says OWN it on DVD today, or OWN it on CD today?
Copyright law does not work how the MPAA and RIAA would have you believe. Yesterday's /. article is evidence of that. You OWN the copy of that content, and no one can ever take away your legal right to view/read/etc. that content. Even their slick marketing departments know that you OWN it.
Their unofficial propoganda programs (the RIAA, MPAA, lobbyist groups, etc.) are trying to change this, but you won't find Sony, Paramount, etc. admitting that they are trying to change the law. They know that you OWN it and that is why they advertise it as such.
Now, works for hire (depending on the contract) and rentals may indeed be licensed, but of course that is contract law and not copyright or right of first sale law.
They keep trying and every time it fails. Look at DivX 10 years ago. It fell flat on its face once people realized that they could lose access to something they are legally entitled to watch - and they did lose that access.
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.
Re:Toothpaste (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, the shrapnel-risk speed was determined to be 56x or higher, with 52x being the max truly safe speed. This is probably why after a brief spate of 56x drives, the industry dropped back to 52x; also why there is a shrapnel shield in the front of newer/faster drives. That ten cents worth of metal could prevent a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
Re:Toothepaste (Score:3, Interesting)
Took the disk to the local used CD store and for $2 they fixed the disk. You can still see the rings on the bottom of the disk, but barely, and they work! 2$/CD is a bargain, just pay the money and let someone else deal with it.
I have also used this to repair FFVII disks for PS1. If anything will fix the disk, this is your best bet, aside from having it done professionally bit-by-bit.
Re:Toothepaste (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm wondering if dirt/grease in the scratches is as much of a culprit as the scratches themselves.
Don't some scratch-fixers work by filling in the scratches with a substance that has a very similar refractive index to the plastic of the CD itself (thus making them near-invisible to the laser)?
Re:cdparanoia (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:cdparanoia (Score:2, Interesting)
My drive was doing that before. Actually, it was running for more than a day before I thought I should stop it and save my laptop's life. I installed XP on my desktop and tried it out and it got through the disc without a sweat.
The moral is: some drives are not good for ripping audio discs.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:CD's and DVD's are BAD technology (Score:3, Interesting)
No, optical storage is better than magnetic because it isn't susceptible to magnetic fields. When CD-ROMs first came out, they had "caddies" that you had to put them into, before loading them into a CD-ROM drive. Keeping all your CDs in caddies kept them from ever getting scratched, just like floppy disks' plastic covers kept them from being scratched.
Unfortunately, consumers didn't like caddies. They were a bit of a pain to work with, because 1) their CDs didn't come in them, they had to provide them themselves, and 2) most people had way more CDs than caddies, so they were constantly swapping (leading to more scratches, which the caddies were supposed to protect against). Plus, the caddies were expensive (leading to problem #2). So drive manufacturers quickly abandoned caddies, and went to tray-loading drives instead.
So if you don't like the fact that CDs and DVDs are so easily scratched, blame your fellow consumers for creating this situation. The drive manufacturers sincerely tried to provide us with a better solution, but we were too cheap to use it, so they gave us what we wanted instead.
Besides, last time I checked, there's no such thing as a removable magnetic media which can store 4.7GB of data, or worse the 36GB that BD-R stores. Hard drives can do it, but they're completely sealed with no dust, and heads floating microns from the platter surfaces. Removable media drives can't replicate such perfect conditions, so the best we've seen is on the order of hundreds of megabytes, which is pathetic compared to optical media. They did have magneto-optical drives for a while, which had great capacities at the time, but they were expensive as well (both the drives and the media). I believe they used caddies too, and you know how that fared.
Face it, people want cheap, even if it's easily damaged and not long-lasting. The best thing you can do is just use optical media, and be careful with it.
Re:cdparanoia (Score:3, Interesting)
"personally, i am a fan of the digital innovations skip doctor. it won't fix a label-side scratch, but i can only think of a couple of discs with intact foil that i've not been able to repair with mine."
my Standard operating procedure for 'fixing' discs involves 1. cleaning the optical media either with a gentle detergent, or with rubbing alcohol*. I always use basic cotton cloths, they're washable, and a fairly gentle cloth. oh yeah and they're cheap. 2. basic car wax I use 'original' turtle wax, but i originally was referred to use carnuba wax. Just avoid anything abrasive, use circular strokes, to avoid possible damage to the media, have it set down on a clean, hard surface, maybe with your cotton cloth underneath. i rub the car wax in with my fingers til it's dry, than lightly brush the disc to a clear surface with the cloth, this fills scratches, and makes disks more readable, oh yeah and it's cheap, if you have to buy cotton cloth and wax you're under $5.
finally, if you've got top scratches use one of the various programs recommended by other readers, you can still usually rip all but 1 or 2 songs, and they might not even be important enough to you, rather than losing a whole disc. automatic disc repair setups i find are lackluster compared to a 'human touch' you'll never put excessive force, the devices polishing discs wont get dirty or be of an unknown material that may be substandard for repairing discs... if your time is more precious to you than money you can probably find a kid willing to learn how to fix the discs and do all the manual labor for you.
*= never had problems with either but some people say not to use alcohol on plastic, ymmv.
Re:cdparanoia (Score:2, Interesting)
They rip with EAC, in secure mode... behave like quality nazis... (a good thing to me)
and then... rip to... MP3???
Oh my.... what were they thinking?
Never heard of OGG, or MPC, or APE, or FLAC?
The pain... cant's stand it... *runs in terror*
Re:cdparanoia (Score:3, Interesting)
While boiling water would destroy 'em, (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Physical Repair (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I have the hand-crank model, and I haven't had any bad experiences with it yet. Granted, I haven't had to use it very often; I take pretty good care of my discs. But I've had one disc which many would consider dead returned to its former glory without any problems whatsoever.
A friend of mine borrowed some CDs of mine, among them several CDR's with data on them. While returning them, the plastic bag in which he carried them broke, and the CDs fell to the floor. Jewel cases cracked open, CDs skidded all over the pavement. We're talking tarmac with crushed stone in it here, the kind of street you wouldn't want to fall off your bike on when you were a kid because you'd be plucking sand and little stones out of your knees for days. One of the CDRs became so scratched (fortunately on the good side; if it were on the back the data-carrying layer would've certainly been damaged beyond repair) that it wouldn't read anymore. I've then spent ten minutes with the scratch doctor. Afterwards the disc looked like it would be impossible to retrieve any data from it. Lots of little scratches left the surface looking like there was some kind of film on it. Surprisingly, the data could be copied off to my harddrive without a hitch though.
YMMV though, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a pretty decent product given its price.
Of course, you could always go talk to the people at your local DVD rental shop and ask them what they'd charge you to resurface your discs. I'm sure a couple of them would probably offer such a service if requested, since they so often need that same service themselves. In fact, if you don't like taking any risks, this seems like your best option.