Best way to "repair"/clean bad/scratched CDs?

[Balk]

Well, going through my collection of PC Games, Utilities, PS Games, and Music CDs, I noticed a lot of them are pretty scratched up. Many of them don't work at all anymore, and even more of them skip or read bad sometimes due to the scratches. I went through and cleaned a lot of them with glass lens cleaner and a soft cloth, and that helped just a little, and then I decided to get some "real" CD cleaning fluid, for which I spent about $3 on a small bottle. Not a noticeable difference.
So, in any of your experiences, what is the BEST way to clean, and possibly even REPAIR a bad/scratched CD? None of the scratches appear to be more than surface scratches and streaks that can probably be harmlessly buffed out if done properly. But what should I use? I saw a Disc/Game/DVD Doctor at a local store, even an electronic one, but they didn't reccommend it. That's about all I got to see, but haven't looked too terribly hard. I figure an opinion on the matter may be needed. So, anyone, if you can say something, say it, please.

 

[lagger]

personally I would get a copy of <A HREF="http://elby.ch/english/products/clone_cd/" target="_new"> clone cd </A> and try to make copies of them using a lot of retries on read errors during the setup phase for reading them to the HDD and I would set the read speed to the lowest possible speed ditto the burn speed from the image you just made

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[4Ryan6]

Believe it or not I've had good sucess with about three coats of RainX, after precleaning with rubbing alcohol, but you'll probably get faster results using Honda Motorcycle brand windshield polish, its especially designed for plexiglass. Clean and polish across the disks avoid circular motion especially in the cleaning stage. Ryan

 

[jihiggs]

it sounds a little nasty, but the oils from your face work very well for a temporary solution so you can backup the cds. just get some on your finger and rub it into the scratch really well with a clean finger. keep rubbing it till its not blotchy anymore.

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[The_Bear]

Well, I will tell you that I have used the DVD Doctor to repair DVD's, PC games, CD-R disc and Playstation 2 games. Although the disc will look worse than when you started (it will have a dull appearance) it works just fine. A DVD is much more critical of any scratch, and like I said the DVD Dr solved a hang I had on one. Don't spend the money on the AC powered version, the hand crank version is good enough.

 

[bovineman]

Yeah the DVD doctor is an excelent way of restoring scratched disks. Just make sure that you use the small white buffing cloth that comes with it and you can restore that pretty shine as well.

 

[lagger]

just came across <A HREF="http://www.cdfreaks.com/news2.php3?ID=5031" target="_new"> this </A> software to copy damaged files \ disks today thought you might want to give it a try.
<A HREF="http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~roadkil/unstopcp.zip" target="_new"> direct link </A>

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[phsstpok]

There used to be a product called Finyl (sp?) for fixing scratches. Don't know if it is still around and I never used it. High-end stereo stores would have it (assuming it is still available).

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[Guest]

hi,i'm muzzammil. try rubbing a white wax candle on your disks. that will fill up the scratches so that the laser can read the data,but if you see light entering through any point then you're probably unlucky

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey