Help Restoring a CD with Chai Cutlery Pics?

Guyon

Guyon

Biscuit Whisperer
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 15, 2000
Messages
45,835
A long while back, someone sent me a copy of the pics from Chai Cutlery. I must have posted about it because I recently received an email from James Mattis's daughter.

Hello,
James Mattis is my father. With the recent passing of my mother I have
acquired his knife inventory. I read on a thread that you have a cd of
his knife pics. If it is not too much trouble I was wondering if I can
have a copy of them.

Thank you for all the kind things you have said about my father. It
means a lot to me.
Click to expand...

Well, I finally located the CD, but it was scratched up a bit and wouldn't read. I tried a couple of tricks that have worked for me in the past. Used some of the CD restoration cream and then gave it a coat or two of furniture polish.

The CD looks pretty good. No horrible scratches. I have CDs that look worse and will still play/read. This one won't, however.

Anyone here want to take a crack at it? Any tricks I haven't tried that might work?

Or better yet, does anyone have a copy of the old website that they can forward along?
 
I've also read that certain types of toothpaste can also be used to polish out the scratches. Not sure which ones, though.
 
First, try wiping it with alcohol (isopropyl rubbing alcohol) using cotton.

Wipe from the center outwards towards the edge.
(In other words, don't wipe around and around the disc.)

That'll clean up the surface, and you should get a read at that point assuming that the disc is playable at all.

_________________________________

Toothpaste can work as a last-ditch treatment.
Best is a tartar control/plaque control version because it's mildly abrasive and washes off cleanly. The idea is to "sand down" the imperfections in the surface which are deflecting the laser light.

But try the alcohol first.
91% isopropyl rubbing alcohol is best, but 70% will do fine as well.
 
Thanks guys. I'll try the alcohol trick first.

If that doesn't work, I can do the buffing wheel. Mine is a Delta variable speed motor. Slowest it'll go is about 1700 RPM. Slow enough not to melt the plastic?
 
Hey Guyon...

Wait!!!

That was said Tongue In Cheek!!

Don't use a Buffer!!!!

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
A few minor scratches won't matter. CDs have redundancy and error correction. You can prove this to yourself easily. Take a CD and put a piece of black electrical tape on it. It will play fine even with a half-inch of the surface completely obstructed. So a few little scratches won't make it non-functional.

The problem is probably on the other side of the disk. On a DVD, the whisper-thin layer of metal that records the data is sandwiched between two pieces of plastic. This is why a DVD can store information on both sides. BUT, a CD is built differently. There is one piece of clear plastic and the whisper-thin metal layer sits on top. So, it is very easy to damage that metal layer. No amount of polishing the plastic side will fix it. This is why you must never write on the "top" of the CD with a ballpoint or rollerball pen. Labels need to be very carefully applied.

There is another possibility. If the CD is an RW (rewritable), then the data may be lost. Rewritable CDs use a phase-changing polymer layer instead of metal. Over time, especially if it wasn't well-written, that polymer material can change phase back by itself. If that happens in more than a few places, then the disk will be unreadable.
 
No! No, dont use the buffer.:eek: I tried that once on a badly scratched U2 Joshua Tree album. 2 seconds on the buffer even with the lightest pressure destroyed the CD by smearing and melting the plastic. :mad: I had no choice but to replace the disk.
 
It is a common problem that CD's go bad after a while. Scratches on the top side are the worst, since they destroy the data (scratches on the bottom side just obstruct the optical path and they can be polished away). Anyway, most of the time this kind of error affects some files on a CD only. If I get you right, the whole CD is unreadable. It could be the file allocation table went bad. If I were you, I'd do the following steps:

1. Try to read it on a second computer
2. Try to read it on a third computer.
3. Try a CD data recovery software (for exemple www.isobuster.com you can give a try with the free version)
 
Guyon - did you get the CD to play?

Hope at least one of these methods worked for you...
 
it might also be your cd drive old cd drives can be problematic some times at reading scratched cd's
 
First try washing it in warm soapy water and polish it with a clean teatowel.

If that doesn't work, polish it with acrylic cleaning foam which you can get from electrical stores like Tandy or RS Components. As mentioned, polish both sides. Polish across the tracks (radially) not in line with them (concentrically).
 
Go to a major video rental franchise with your CD, and pay the clerk to put it through their industrial buffer. Make sure he uses a clean pad and sprays cleaner on the disk, or it'll just get worse. Tell him to put it on the highest setting.

If that doesn't help, some franchises also have a "resurfacer" to correct digs and pits.

Quick fixes like furniture polish or those adhesive resurfacing products tend to create more problems than they fix, and cheap buffers don't do the job well. You need professional equipment. These buffers cost over a grand.
 
tyr_shadowblade said:
Go to a major video rental franchise with your CD, and pay the clerk to put it through their industrial buffer. Make sure he uses a clean pad and sprays cleaner on the disk, or it'll just get worse. Tell him to put it on the highest setting.

If that doesn't help, some franchises also have a "resurfacer" to correct digs and pits.

Quick fixes like furniture polish or those adhesive resurfacing products tend to create more problems than they fix, and cheap buffers don't do the job well. You need professional equipment. These buffers cost over a grand.
Click to expand...


This sounds like a good idea. I think I'll call the Hollywood Video or Blockbuster near us and see if they have a buffer.

I didn't think the buffer and rouge was serious by the way. I was just yanking some chains. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top