How To Get Rid of DVD Scratches

Are you looking at ways to get rid of DVD scratches that make your movie making experience dull? Look no further and try out the below techniques to keep your records safe and scratch free.

Traditional Cleaning

This is the old school traditional style cleaning method. It works sometimes too. Take a piece of dry and soft cotton cloth and first wipe out all the dust off the disc. Now take a paintbrush and rub on the disc gently to remove the dust that might be settled in the grooves of the spiral. Once the disc is dust free, put the disc under running water. This water should be preferably warm.

wash-cd

Once disc is clean, then look closely for any oil or grease marks on it. If the marks are available, then use liquid soap or detergent and rub on the disc gently starting from the centre towards the edge. You can also use alcohol as it helps in removing the grease from the disc. Now wash it again and leave it to dry.

Covering the Scratched Parts

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If you see many scratches on your DVD, you will have to find a wav to cover them with something. However, before you start covering the scratches it is important to identify them. Wash you DVD with running warm water and if required apply some liquid soap on the disc gently. When you have washed the disc, the scratches will become more evident making it easier for you to identify them. While you may see many small scratches, they are not the main trouble point for you. Look for big scratches. If the scratch is in a vertical directions from the centre of the disc towards outside, you can ignore it for now. Look closely for any scratch that you find in the direction of the spiral. These are your real problem areas. Now once you know the scratch you can use various methods of filling these scratches and polishing it. There are some scratch filler available in the market. You can use them or also try with some home items like a banana, peanut butter, toothpaste and metal polish. However, before you start polishing, first clean the DVD so that it is dust free. Rinsing in water would be a good option. Now take the item of your choice and put in the scratched area. Do not put too much of filler. Now take a piece of smooth cloth and with your fingers rub the paste on the DVD in anti circular motion from the end of the DVD towards the centre. Rub it for about ten minutes and you will feel the smoothness while rubbing it. Do not apply too much pressure. Once the polishing is done rinse the DVD again in running water to get rid of any excess paste that you have used. If this does not work, repeat the same process again for ten minutes.

Wax Method

Vaseline

Wax method is not much different from the usual polishing method. You can use Vaseline jelly as a scratch remover in this method. However, Vaseline is very greasy and can be difficult to remove after polishing it.

Light Bulb

Light Bulb

This is an age-old method used by many DJs and professional when they have to run a scratched DVD. It is very simple also and you do not need to be an expert to do it. However, you would need an incandescent light bulb for it that has minimum output of 60 watts. Switch on the lamp and now insert your index finger inside the hole of the DVD and place the rest of the fingers on the edges of the DVD. It is just like how you take a DVD out from a DVD player. Now place the disc close to the lamp exposing the recorded side towards the lamp. Now rotate the disc slowly around your index finger. Keep doing it for about 20 Seconds. The DVD should now work properly.

Foil Repair Method

Foil Scratch Repair Method

If there are any scratches in the foil then you can use this method. The best way to find out if there are any scratches on the foil is to hold the disc in front of a lamp and look for the scratches. Once you know the scratched area, reverse the sides of the DVD and mark the scratched area from the other side with a marker. Now get a tape preferably a masking tape or a doctor’s tape and paste it on the marked area. If the DVD is not working because of the scratch in the foil, this would definitely help. However, this method is only fruitful when there is a scratch on the foil. If there is a hole in the foil, then it most likely will not work.

Professional Refinishing

DVD-Repair

If nothing works and you need to have the contents of the DVD, you might have to take it to a professional. They have advance technology machines, which can take a backup of your disc on another DVD. They can recover almost all of your data. You can initially try to take the backup of your DVD on your computer. If it works then well and good. The reason for this is computer DVD players can generally read a scratched DVD, which a regular DVD player may not be able to read. If your computer can read the DVD then you can use various tools like Nero to take a backup of your disc. The last resort has to be to take it to a professional.