Scratched CDs
While compact discs (CDs) are extremely hardwearing, it’s nearly impossible to prevent scratches from happening occasionally. Damage resulting from scratched CDs can mean that you lose one of your favourite music tracks or, in the case of scratched data CDs the loss of some important data. However, it’s not the end of the world, and it’s usually possible to recover the information. There are a few things that you can try yourself before having to resort to a data recovery company.
Try washing scratched CDs in warm water with a little mild detergent. Rinse it and shake off the excess water then allow it to dry in the air (never in the Sun). Try playing it. It the problem is still there try playing it on a different player – sometimes this may work. If you do get it to play, burn a copy of the disc onto a new CD. It is sometimes possible to get a perfect copy of the original this way. If you have a program such as Nero it may be able to read the bad section by reading at a very slow speed multiple times. In a Windows system Nero will do this, whereas Linux has the ddrescue tool. Because of the slow reading and multiple passes it can take a long time – up to 2 hours – to complete this task. The final way of recovering scratched CDs is to polish them, however this is a drastic method and should only be used as a last resort. Polishing removes some of the plastic layer, making a scratch shallower or even removing it completely. Toothpaste or Brasso are the most commonly used and can work, but be warned; this can damage the disk more and should only be used as a last resort. For further information on recovering scratched CDs please contact Intratec – we’ll be happy to advise you.
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