How to Recover Scratched CD's and DVD's

David Polanco
A previous resident of Del Rio Texas now living in the San Antonio. Currently President for Spyglass Hill Condominiums, and partnered with Emocium Inc.

How to Recover Scratched CD's and DVD's

Mar 23rd, 2006 2:16:28 pm - Subscribe
Mood: sleepy
Music: Tha Mexakinz - Da Joint

Step 1 Gather Required Materials.
First gather the following materials.

Paper towel (softer is better)

Polishing cloth (eyeglasses cloth will do fine)

CD scratched beyond playability (Easy to find)

Can of Brasso Metal Polish.

Step 2 Add Brasso and Start Polishing!
Take some of the brasso and pour it onto the CD. Please be careful with the Brasso, and only perform this in a well ventilated area. I was making this guide at at the office, and forgot about the fumes. I had to polish the CD in the stairwell as I would have fumed out my co-workers otherwise.

Use the paper towel pieces to polish the CD. Polishing is ideal in straight strokes from the center of the disk to the outside so you polish perpendicular to the tracks on the disc. Because I was short on time, I used small circular motions similar to how I'd polish a car. Take your time with this. Add Brasso when it dries or gets pushed off the CD. Continue this process for about 15 minutes.

You should feel the abrassiveness of the Brasso on the CD as you are doing this. If not, then use a different papertowel. The brasso is removing part of the plastic from the disc not adding to it. You are actually scraping away part of the CD which makes the existing scratches smaller.

After 15 minutes or so, Rince the CD off under water and check the CD. The brasso will have left small scratches on the disc as it wore down the CD. Keep going until the deep scratches are gone, and all that remains are the marks from the brasso. (they will diminish as you continue and get an even surface again).

When done, rince the disc, and wipe it with the soft eyeglass cloth.

Step 3 Insert CD into CD-ROM Drive and Test.
Take your polished, rinsed and dried CD and test it in your CD ROM. If it still doesn't work go back to step #2.

As you see by my example, I was successful at pulling the data off my CD-ROM.

I have not attempted this on DVDs or video console games. Please do this at your own risk. Results will vary on your patience, and polishing technique.

Sources:
Re-surfacing CDs so they work again

Comments 4 | Post A Comment

indie-guy - March 24th, 2006
cool!

i, myself, have mastered the art of buffing scratches out with toothpaste. that stuff works wonders! i even got rid of some scratches on an old guitar before i sold it. which earned me a few more dollars. i use it on dvds and cds mostly.

mm...minty fresh.

david - March 24th, 2006
Not a bad technique, anyone else have any more innovative ideas?

femmeemo - March 24th, 2006
I don't know, but if anyone knows a super-top-secret way of fixing scratched records, I'd be forever in debt! I've been trying to replace an old Go-Go's record because the one I have is really jumpy because it's so scratched... (And yeah, the toothpaste trick works WONDERS!)

Night All...

gatorjunki - March 24th, 2006
This is a good idea....I'll definitely have to use it!

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