How To Fix A Scratched CD To Recover Your Data

Everyone knows it is nearly impossible to prevent CDs from scratches or damaged from time to time, especially with frequent use. Once the CD is scratched or damaged, it means you will lose the data on it. Then how to recover the damaged or scratched CD for data recovery? In this article we will show you some simple ways.

All Things You Need

Clean, software, lint-free cloth (microfiber cloths is recommended)

Water (or rubbing alcohol)

Brasso metal polisher, fine polishing compound or toothpaste

Cotton gloves or plastic food-handling gloves (which can be used to handle CDs without leaving behind fingerprints)

A lamp

Instructions to fix scratched CDs

Step 1 : Clean the CD disc.

To maintenance your CD disc, it is very important to clean it, no matter if it is scratched or scuffed, dust, oil or other surface contaminants. Do the following to clean your CD disc:

Remove dust from the CD interface by running warm water over the damaged disc.If find a stubborn dirt or grease on the CD disc, gently rub it with your finger while you are washing it. Or you can use a gentle detergent or liquid soap or rubbing alcohol, which will do better on the cleaning.When making the CD disc clean, shake the water off and wait for the disc dry in air. (Remember never dry the CD disc with a towerl or cloth to prevent it from stained again, nor try sun-dry).Play the CD disc. In fact, the scratched CD disc will be useful again after this step. Try to play the CD in a different CD player. Some players in the market do a better job on the scratched CD playback than others.Copy the CD to a new disc. Although your CD is playable in some CD player, it is suggested to copy the scratched CD to a new disc. Then your new CD will be played correctly by all CD players in all computers.

Step 2 :  Repair foil scratches on CD.

First, determine if you have a scratch in the disc’s foil. Hold the CD in clear view of a bright light, shiny side up to see if there are small areas on the disc indicating the signs of the foil missing.Second, mark where these areas are with a whiteboard maker pen carefully.
Third, repair the foil scratches by getting two small stripes of masking tape and laying them one on top of each other over the area you have just marked. Then the missing pieces of foil will be repaired perfectly.

Step 3 :  Polish the CD disc with a slight abrasive.

Some of the outer plastic coating can be removed quickly by polishing a CD disc. A number of common household products can be used to complete the CD polishing, such as toothpaste especially baking soda toothpaste, and Brasso. All you need to do is to put a small amount of toothpaste, or brasso to a soft, clean, lint-free cloth and rum the cloth on the scratch or scuff in a radial motion. Finally remove the polishing product from the CD disc. If you are using the toothpaste, rinse the disc with warm water and then wait it for air-dry. If you are using Brasso, just wipe off excess product on the CD and wait the reset dry, and then wipe the disc with a clean, soft cloth,

Step 4  : Repair the scratched CD with light bulb.

This method is also very simple: turn on your prepared light bulb (it should be a 60 watt incandescent filament bulb) > hold the CD with your forefinger in the center of CD towards the lamp > keep the CD in place for about 20 seconds or so by rotate it slowly around your forefinger. Then while it’s still hot, play it in the CD drive.