Cheap n’ Easy CD-DVD Scratch repair

[ihaveanosebleed]

There are some repair kits on the market that use either abrasives or chemical softeners to remove scratches. I paid about $15 for one kit a while back which was essentially 3 tiny sheets of micro-grit sandpaper. I did use it a few times to recover data on scratched CD’s and it worked pretty good for light scratches.

So I came across a badly scratched CD the other day that my PC could not read and I couldn’t find my little repair kit. I started thinking of what I might be able to use instead. I needed something lightly abrasive but not too abrasive. I found what I was looking for in a cleaning product called “Old Dutch” Cleansing powder. Similar to “Comet”.

I took a paper towel, put some powder on it and some tap water and started rubbing the CD surface. I got the same affect as my repair kit. The powder devolves in water so the more water you use the finer grit you end up with. You need to rub straight up and down line from the inside to the outside edge, never circular. I was able to recover all the data from My CD and make a new burn. and it was much easier and faster that my repair kit would have been.