Is it possible to restore a scratched disk? How to polish a blank with toothpaste at home

Hi all! It's a shame when necessary files cannot be read from the disk, but they are not on the computer! How to be? It won’t help here, only the physical will help here disk recovery, and then software. There are many devices for polishing a disc, but what if you don’t have them at hand? That's why today we'll look at how to repair a scratched CD/DVD disc .

How to repair a scratched disk

For the sake of experiment, I took a scratched one dvd disk.

To recover cd or dvd disk You need to dilute the toothpaste with plain water in a 50-50 ratio. We mix well. I have green pasta with herbs, it’s expensive, but what can I do)))

Now take a napkin (preferably made of soft fabric, of course) and polish the disc from the center to the edge.

ATTENTION! The movements are as in the figure from the inside to the outside.

You cannot polish using circular movements! You can make the disk even worse. Polish the disc for about 20 minutes, dipping a napkin in water, thereby restoring cd disk. Apply pressure as if you were erasing a pencil from a sheet of paper. Watch carefully to ensure no new dents appear.

Over time, we try to put less pressure on the disk and check that the data on our disk is read. This is how you can restore a completely destroyed disk within two hours. To avoid this in the future, use special bags and bags so that you don’t have to remember the procedure again. disk recovery! Well, then it’s up to the programs, it’s not a fact that the disk has been completely restored, so read on!

How to restore a disc from scratches using the program

Of all the programs, I chose CD Recovery Toolbox. This program is free and simple. Download:

Launch it, select the dvd-rom containing the disc and click next.

We choose where we will save the files from the scratched disk.

Select the files or folders you want to restore. And click save.

The recovery process will begin. We wait until all files are restored to the selected folder.

When all files have been restored, the folder to which the files were restored will open. And the program will display a recovery log, which will contain a video showing which files were recovered and which were not.

Now we look at which files were recovered and which were not. If something was not restored, then we repeat the process from the beginning, only this time restoring unrecovered files. This is how you can restore a scratched disk.

You can also try to restore a scratched disk using a more rigorous method:

Let's start with the fact that there are disks that cannot be restored at all. It is very easy to “kill” a CD, but restoring it is a problem.

And this method will not give a 100% guarantee that the information will be recovered. But in 80% of cases it was noted positive result, even with seemingly hopeless disks (I installed Windows 7 and copied it to a new “blank”).

My advice: for storage important information use disks from well-known manufacturers (TDK, Verbatim, SONY, Samsung, LG).
These discs have a higher quality coating (resistant to mechanical damage) in comparison with cheap Chinese "blanks".
And it is easier to “remove” and restore information from higher quality disks.

So let's get started:

1) First of all, you need to clean the disk from contamination, carefully wipe it with a damp cloth to clean the monitor, or rinse it under warm (not hot) water with a soft cotton cloth. Precisely carefully and with movements from the center to the edges.

2) Let the disc dry and gently wipe with a dry cotton cloth.

3) Prepare several ear sticks and a cotton swab, as well as a medical solution of brilliant green (commonly called “ZELONKA”).
We will use this tool to restore a scratched CD or DVD disc.

4) Take and generously apply “green paint” to the disc in an even layer

5) Then rub the green stuff over the damaged disc with a cotton swab. We do this with light (without effort), quick movements, so as not to let the “green stuff” dry out.
If the green paint has dried out, apply fresh paint to the area and repeat the rubbing procedure.

6) After this, the disk acquires a slightly greenish tint, but this does not affect operation.
After 5-10 minutes of drying, you can insert the disc into the drive.

7) If necessary, repeat steps 4-6.

The essence of the method is that the “green stuff” has a similar color scheme with the surface of a CD. By applying green pigment, we paint over the scratches. Thus reducing the laser refraction points from the reading head of any CD player or drive.

After such manipulations, programs for reading information from damaged media (DeadDiscDoctor 1.0, File Salvage 2.0, IsoBuster 1.9 Pro, etc.) will have much more likely to have a positive result.
For example, you can view programs

Working surface optical disks easily damaged - protective layer becomes covered with scratches even with not too intensive use. Deep defects often lead to the impossibility of extracting information from damaged media. Next, we will tell you how to restore a scratched disc by polishing using toothpaste, GOI paste, and also consider some “harmful” tips from the CD Resuscitation Network.

Rules for working with damaged optical discs

Let us say right away that an unreadable media with deep scratches can be restored in this way, at best, only partially. Moreover, you will have to act extremely carefully, otherwise the surface can be completely damaged. It would be better to first practice on old unnecessary media before restoring a disk with valuable information - this way you can evaluate the effectiveness of the method and, as they say, get better at it.

And do not try to immediately resort to using the method described below when a reading error occurs - check the disk on another computer - often it is the DVD drive that causes the problems. In addition, there are a lot of applications that allow you to extract maximum information from scratched blanks thanks to a modified reading algorithm. One effective solution is Durable Copy.

It is advisable to use the program to work with discs that have already been restored by polishing, because we have already noted that heavily damaged media can never be restored 100%.

How to polish a blank with toothpaste at home

The most affordable and safe way polishing - using toothpaste:

The movements during the polishing process should not be too intense so that the surface does not heat up quickly. There is no need to put pressure on the blank either. After 15-20 minutes, rinse the disc thoroughly in warm water. Its surface may become matte due to the appearance of many microscopic scratches, but deep damage will become much less noticeable, which should have a better effect on the readability of the disc.

Dry the optical drive, try inserting it into the DVD drive. If your goal is to retrieve photos, important documents, etc., use Durable Copy or similar app. Surely this time there will be noticeably more copied intact information.

If necessary, restoring the working surface using the method described above can be repeated, but it makes sense to carry it out for no more than an hour. As practice shows, polishing with paste for too long causes the opposite effect - there is less readable data on the media.

Professional polishing method

For truly valuable and expensive disks, such artisanal methods should no longer be used. To obtain an acceptable result, the polycarbonate base will need to be polished with fine abrasive GOI paste (sold in construction stores) using an electric drill with a grinding attachment:

If you don’t have a power tool, polishing with GOI paste can also be done manually, but a positive result is far from guaranteed, and the process can take a long time.

How not to restore optical discs

You can often read a lot on the Internet alternative ways restoration of scratched compacts. For example, sometimes it is recommended to polish simply with soft or denim cloth. It is clear that you cannot polish the surface with non-abrasive materials. It will simply overheat and the media will no longer be recoverable.

Another extreme option ( real advice“specialists” from the Internet) - polishing with fine-grained sandpaper. This method can immediately ruin the surface without even making an effort. The same applies to heating the disk in the microwave, under a table lamp, etc.

Another popular tip from the Internet is to cover the scratch with “green paint” or even completely treat the surface of the compact with it.

Problem: scratched disc

If you've ever dealt with a scratched disc, you know that scratches cause significant damage to the contents of the disc. Where do scratches come from? There are several reasons why scratches appear on a disk:

• Frequent use of the disc (the CD-Rom itself may scratch the disc);
• careless handling of the disc (for example, the disc is stored without packaging);
• accidental drops of the disc on the floor;
• other influences.

The result of scratches is sectors on the disk that the laser cannot read. Why is this happening? Because the grooves on the disc, i.e. scratches bend the laser path. And, although the information under the scratches itself is preserved, the laser cannot reach it. Thus, scratches block access to information on the disk and make its use inconvenient or impossible. For example, if a movie is recorded on a disc, then when the film approaches a scratched place on the disc, the image may begin to “jump” and stop completely. This greatly spoils the impression of the film, and sometimes makes it impossible to watch. And if the disk contains important text documents, then there is no need to say that unreadable sectors are completely unnecessary there! What to do?

Is it even possible to extract information from a scratched disk?

After studying information on the Internet, we realized that this issue is the subject of controversy. Some believe that it is possible to recover data from a scratched disk, others disagree with this, and still others doubt it. We wondered if there was even an answer to this question? We did not find any special experiments on the Internet, and the materials we found turned out to be dubious. Therefore, we decided to conduct our own independent experiment.

Data Extraction Methods

We know that there are two possible approaches to extract data from damaged disk, namely software method And mechanical method. Software method is to recover data using special programs(such as “Trust Copy”, etc.). It allows you to read damaged files by skipping unreadable places, i.e. extract everything that can be extracted. Mechanical method based on mechanical polishing of the disc surface. This method allows you to increase the availability of data reading.

Independent experiment

We want to explore the mechanical method in practice, because... We want to recover data that may seem lost. We also use the program because... standard means copying will not allow us to extract data from a file that is even slightly damaged ( standard program will immediately display a file reading error and stop working). And we want to try to extract all available information from the disk.

Let's assume that polishing the scratched surface of a disc allows you to erase the scratches completely and/or make them less deep. Thus, the problem of laser path curvature can be eliminated completely or partially and the information on the disk will be read. Let this be our hypothesis. Based on this hypothesis, we conducted an independent experiment. And now we illustrate here the step-by-step process of the procedure and present the results obtained. We hope that you will be interested in reading this information and that you will find something useful for yourself.

The task The experiment is to find answers to the following questions:

• Is retrieving data from a scratched disk a solvable problem?
• What does the disc polishing method do? Is polishing real recovery data thanks to better data availability for the laser?

Restoring a scratched disk using improvised means

Stages of the experiment:

1. We took it completely undamaged new disk(without scratches) and checked its readability using the Reliable Copy disk reading program.
2. We scratched the new disc thoroughly using a sharp-edged seashell and a piece of granite.
3. We checked the readability of the damaged disk using the Reliable Copy disk reading program and compared it with the original unscratched copy using the Sync Last Files Professional program to find different files.
4. We sanded and polished the disc for 30 minutes using regular toothpaste as an abrasive. In this case, we sanded for 10 minutes using a medium-hard toothbrush and toothpaste, and polished for 20 minutes using a rag, toothpaste and water.
5. We tested the readability of the sanded and polished disc using the Reliable Copy disc reader program and compared it with the original unscratched copy using the Sync Last Files Professional program.
6. Next, we polished the disc for another 60 minutes using a rag, toothpaste and water.
7. And then we again checked the readability of the polished disk using the "Trust Copy" disk reading program and compared it with the original unscratched copy using the "Sync Last Files Professional" program.

At the end of the experiment you can see its results ( conclusions).

Stage 1. Checking the readability of an undamaged disc.

Photos 1 and 2. We took a completely undamaged disc (no scratches).

Photo 3. We inserted this disk into the drive and launched the "Reliable Copy" disk reading program to make a master copy of the disk.

Screenshot 1. Here you can see that we are prepared for copying: we want to copy the disk in order to use it as a master copy in the future. As the disk becomes damaged, we will compare it with the reference copy in order to understand whether we were able to recover the data. IN right column there is a source for copying files, i.e. the disk itself. In the left column there is a blank directory in which we will store the original, i.e. an undamaged copy of the disk.

Screenshot 2. Disk analysis in progress.

Screenshot 3. Files are being copied from an undamaged disk.

Screenshot 4. No error notifications appeared. All files were copied successfully.

Stage 2. Scratching a good disc.

Photo 4. We prepared tools to damage the surface of the disk: a sea shell with sharp edges and a piece of granite.

Photo 5. Applying scratches. To complicate the restoration task, we deliberately inflicted scratches of different thicknesses and types: transverse and longitudinal lines and zigzags, which are the most dangerous for disk data:

Photo 6. We thoroughly scratched the disc. The scratches were deep, but not so deep as to damage the information layer itself (they did not scratch the disk right through).

Stage 3. Checking the readability of a damaged disk.

Photo 7. We inserted the scratched disc into the drive and launched the Reliable Copy disc reading program. We are wondering if this program will be able to extract the data and check the number of files being read.

Screenshot 5. The copying program is trying to read our scratched disk. It can be seen that some files cannot be read at all, others only partially.

Screenshot 6. The scratched disc has been copied. As can be seen from the table, only 142 files ( 5% ) were copied successfully, 2560 files were only partially read, and 8 files were not read at all.

The fact that the files were copied does not mean that they are intact. Let's perform a byte-by-byte comparison of the copied data with the reference copy using the Sync Last Files Professional program.

Screenshot 7. The Sync Last Files Professional program shows the result of the comparison.

Screenshot 8. Comparison result close-up. 2568 different files were identified.

As you can see from the table, there is a difference in the total number of elements shown by Sync Last Files Professional and Reliable Copy. There are several reasons for this:

• Sync Last Files Professional counts both files and directories. For example, there are 469 directories on our disk.
• "Sync Last Files Professional" is excluded from the results identical files and directories, since it is designed to synchronize different files and directories.
• "Sync Last Files Professional" will synchronize when there is a file in one of the directories being compared, but not in the other.

This means that Sync Last Files Professional should have found 2568 different files. 2562 different files were identified, which is less than expected. Why? This could happen because some of the files copied at the first stage contained empty data (for example, there was a large picture in BMP format, the damage of which occurred in empty place). But the main thing here is that damaged files no more than he thinks corrupted program"Durable Copy".

Stage 4. Grinding and polishing the scratched disc (first stage).

Photo 8. We prepared tools for polishing a scratched disc: a medium-hard toothbrush and toothpaste as an abrasive material.

Photo 9. We applied toothpaste to the brush and began sanding the disc.

Photo 10. The sanding process with a brush lasted only 10 minutes, after which we took a rag.

Photo 11. We abandoned the brush and took a rag instead. We applied toothpaste to the disc and polished vigorously for another 20 minutes, periodically wetting the disc with water. The change from a toothbrush to a rag was due to the fact that the rag was softer and more delicate than a brush, which itself left scratches, although it was soft. We hope that the abrasive force of the toothpaste and rag will be enough to polish.

Photo 12. After that we washed the disc. As you can see in the photo, the surface of the disc is no longer shiny: it has become matte due to polishing. Through matte surface You can see our scratches, which are no longer as deep as at the beginning.

Stage 5. Checking the readability of a polished disc.

Photo 13. We wiped the disk dry, inserted it into the drive and launched the “Reliable Copy” disk reading program.

Screenshot 9. 694 files successfully copied ( 26% ). Partially copied 2016 files. 0 files were not copied.

Screenshot 10. Result of comparison using the Sync Last Files Professional program.

Screenshot 11. Close-up comparison result.

Comparison of the resulting copy with the standard using the Sync Last Files Professional program in byte-by-byte comparison mode also showed positive dynamics. Different 2016 files. This means not only that we have improved the laser readability of the data, but also that the data itself really preserved under the scratched surface of the disc.

Stage 6. Polishing a scratched disc (second stage).

Photo 14. Inspired by the initial success, we again applied toothpaste to the rag and began to polish the disc with force. From time to time we wet the disc with water and continued polishing. The polishing process lasted 60 minutes.

Photo 15. We then washed the disc thoroughly with warm water.

Photo 16. We wiped the disc dry and saw the final result of our efforts: after polishing, our scratches became less deep, although we were not able to polish the disc completely. But we still see progress in polishing a disc using this method.

We inserted the disc into the drive and launched the Trusted Copy disc reading program.

Stage 7. Final check of the readability of a polished disc using the Reliable Copy disc reading program.

Screenshot 12. The program copies data from a polished disk.

Screenshot 13. Entire 1099 files copied ( 41% ). 1606 files were partially copied. 5 files were not copied.

Screenshot 14. The Sync Last Files Professional program found 1582 different files using a byte-by-byte comparison.

Screenshot 15. Close-up result of comparison using the Sync Last Files Professional program.

And again we see positive dynamics: after extensive polishing, we were able to read an additional 405 files, while after the first iteration we were able to read an additional 552 files. At the same time, although the overall dynamics are positive, we see the beginning of progressive destruction of files by long-term polishing: after the first polishing, 0 files were unreadable, and after the second polishing, there were already 5 files.

conclusions:

1. Our experiment shows that retrieving data from a scratched disk is a solvable problem;
2. Polishing the disc does result in data recovery due to better data accessibility to the laser;
3. In 1.5 hours of polishing, we were able to extract 967 files from 2568 that were initially damaged, which was confirmed by byte-by-byte comparison of the files with the reference copy;
4. Moderate polishing improves data accessibility to the laser, but prolonged polishing may result in data loss;
5. Polishing works well on small scratches, but does not cope with deep ones;
6. Polishing by hand is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process.

Probably everyone has encountered the problem of a scratched disk,
For example, in the middle of installing a game or watching a movie, an error occurs.
Many people don’t think that it is still possible to restore it and your game will be installed..
I advise everyone to read this article, even if you do not have a scratched disk.

The CD may be scratched by rough handling or dropping it.
Scratches and dirt on the surface of the disc can lead to disc reading errors,
Or generally prevent its reproduction, since any defects on it
Surfaces interfere with the drive's laser beam from reading data.
Fingerprints and other dirt can be easily removed from the disc surface,
But with scratches everything is much more complicated.

A scratch not only prevents the laser from reading data,
But also, if it is deep enough, it can damage the reflective coating of the disc,
Which contains the data.

The top of the disc is covered with a polycarbonate coating.
If only this is scratched and the metal layer is not damaged,
then the disk can be recovered.

How to clean a disk from minor scratches :

To clean from small scratches you need cotton wool and cologne.
Take the disc by the edges and spray it with cologne several times
And wipe the disc with cotton, starting from the center to the edge - but not in a circular motion!
Sometimes this is enough for the disc to start playing again.

How to clean a disc from medium-sized scratches:

To remove scratches from a disc, you need to carefully polish it. protective covering,
using cotton wool and a small amount of a very soft abrasive,
for example, plain white toothpaste or furniture polish.

So, apply a small amount of toothpaste to the scratch on the disc.
If you apply a lot of the substance, polishing will be more difficult.
Rub the cotton wool over the scratch without applying any extra force until
until the scratch disappears. Start moving from the center of the disk to its edge.
Scratches respond best when polished along their length.

After this, clean the disc with cologne (by splashing on the disc and rubbing new cotton wool)
And try to play it again.
If the disc still does not play, repeat the procedure.

Personally, I had a disk with Windows 7 and at the beginning of the installation an error occurred.
After three attempts to clean the scratches with toothpaste, the installation began to reach the halfway point.
Then, after cleaning it 4 more times, Windows was installed.
And you don’t have to think: “What did the author smoke?” This method really works.

For minor scratches toothpaste is effective solution.
For more deep scratches polish will do, but don't forget
that too much polishing force may result in new scratches.

For large scratches You can also use furniture or car wax.
Apply wax to the entire disc and buff it with a cloth.
Use a lint-free cloth. Instead of removing scratches,
the wax will fill the gaps between them.

Also, don’t forget that you can buy polishing kits in stores.
For restoring scratched or damaged CDs.
If the scratch is particularly deep, the data layer may be damaged.
which makes the disk faulty. IN in this case polishing won't help.

Tips and warnings:
If you want to experiment with other waxes or materials,
Then do it on unnecessary disk- because it is possible that the wax will not come off.