Optrical disc repair kits

[aurgathor]

I'm looking at some motorized disc repair kits on Amazon ( https://www.amazon.com/disc-repair-kits/b?node=14084701 ). and I see that some can be had for as little as $20 while more expensive ones are well over $100.

Does anyone have any experience with any scratch removal machine?

[creakndale]

I have a Memorex Optifix Pro that I picked up at a Thrift Store for $4 that came with all the pads / solutions. I borrow quite a few DVDs from the library and occasionally get a really scratched disc. I've gotten pretty good at looking at a disc and "knowing" whether it's going to give my player problems. I'm amazed at how well a modern Blu-Ray/DVD player is able to handle scratched discs.

I've only had to use the Optifix on 3 discs. Two discs were "repaired" good enough to play without skipping. One disc was so badly scratched, I eventually gave up trying to repair it. I ran that disc through the 2 minute "repair cycle" probably 5 times. The disc "looked" better each time but continued to skip so it wasn't worth the continued effort. The repair pad are only supposed to last 20 cycles and I didn't want to use them up.

Cleaning guides say to wipe from the center to the outside edge of the disc. Although I don't regret my $4 investment, it leaves faint swirl marks on the disc surface. Intuitively, it seems something like Skip Dr. would be a better choice due to the center to edge wiping motion.

creakndale

[lingyi]

I tried a couple years ago and they only made the disc worse. Check out your local video game or video rental store and ask if they the have an RTI DiscCheck machine. If they don't have one or don't know what it is, move on.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rti+disccheck&i=electronics&ref=nb_sb_noss

Edit: Read this thread, it's old, but nothing has changed: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/336461-Fixing-scratched-disk-read-about-it-tried-it-it-worked%21

[lordsmurf]

RTI DiscCheck
Amazing at what it does, essentially sand and rebuff surface.

Note that it can only be done a few times to a disc, before the disc starts to ruin from losing its surface.

[aurgathor]

I took me a while (?!?), but I just ordered an Aleratec DVD CD Motorized Disc Repair Plus System from eBay. The RTI DiscCheck doesn't seem to be available any more, and lucky thrift store finds are hard to come by.

[aurgathor]

I've been using the Aleratec disc repair kit for a while (also ordered and received a refill kit incase they become unavailable -- just like aleratec.com -- in the future).

The kit has 3 basic functionalities:
1. disc cleaning -- not particularly useful since I think can accomplish the equivalent with denatured alcohol (or some other comparable cleaning agent) and a toilet/tissue paper.

2. disc repair -- essentially polishing, this may make the disc to look like new and get rid of the swirl marks received during #3. However, even though the DVD may look nearly flawless, many optical drives may still have issues reading those 'repaired' DVD. (very deep scratches not buffed out in #3 may be one reason in some cases)

3. disc buffing -- this is essentially grinding down and removing the top layer of the plastic. After this operation there will be very visible swirl marks on the surface; however, many scratches, especially those causing read errors are much deeper than the amount 'buffing' removes in one pass, so it may need to be repeated several times because I continue to see the deeper scratches. Obviously, this operation can only be repeated for a finite amount of times before removing all plastics and reaching the reflective layer. And once that happens, its a guaranteed *GAME OVER*.

As per my experience with borrowed (library) DVDs, the functionality I use most is buffing, and I usually have to repeat it several times. I normally stop after 5 runs, partly to extend the life of the buffing pads, partly to avoid getting rid of the protective plastic layer.

Repair (polishing) can be repeated 2 - 3 times on a buffed disc, but more than that doesn't seem to make any visible or readable difference. I'm not fully sure why, but sometimes discs that look near perfect, would still not read fine in average DVD players/writers. Often there is a huge difference -- like and night and day -- between the original and the repaired [buffed and polished] disc, but the repaired disc will still err out at roughly the same place. I see if I can figure out some way to make usable photos of pre and post repair discs that can illustrate the visible difference between them.

Lastly, I think I've had a roughly 25 - 33% success rate, though that number would probably be a bit (?!) higher if I didn't restrict the maximum number of buffings per disc to 5, partly because as per documentation, the buffing heads are good for only "10-20 uses". I didn't keep count of the DVDs I've tried to fix, but it's most likely 10+.

[cornemuse]

I get mostly library DVDs, a lot with scratches! First thing I do is: rinse disk & hands in cold water. Add a healthy drip of liquid dish soap on dvd. Wash around & back n forth with fingers, (both sides). rinse fingers/hands 1st then dvd, (litely rinse) dry & attempt rip soon.

The soap makes the water 'wetter', allowing it to flow(?) into the scratches leaving a 'smoother' disk surface. *Water dries, dont wash it now & rip later*

I have a "mini" die grinder from Harbor Frieght, 12 v, fits in my hand, I put the buffing wheel (included) in & buff -in the direction of disk radius-, no compound, just clean wheel. and go after the worst scratches. Tedious on a really badly scratched disk.

And ya know, (for those who might not know!) the scratches going from center to edge are a lot less damaging than scratches running circularly -same direction as data.

-corne-

{worth a try}