Remove DVD & CD Scratches with Vaseline

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Apparently you can use Vaseline and tissues to remove scratches from CDs and DVDs. Whew, after all these years, I finally have a legitimate excuse to have that stuff on my desk. :D

Vaseline (Petroleum Jelly) can be used for chapped lips, dry skin, and for getting rid of head lice; but how about making CDs and DVDs readable again? Well, it does that too. There are also other ways to do this on the Instructables website, but I will show you the one that I believe works best.
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I hope to God people read the instruction before thinking "oh ok I'll lather Vaseline on the CD" and stick them into the drive.
 
Way to messy! I have been using Pledge furniture polish for many years on scratched dvd's/cd's with great results. I have had some pretty well scratched disks before that would not play at all; spray on a healthy dose of Pledge and polish off with a nice smooth lint free towel.
 
450 said:
I use toothpaste ...
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The white generic ones works best. Gel is rubbish and the ones with micro beads or whatever makes it even worst. Anyone want to do a comparison of the different mints to see which works better? :p
 
I used to have a tool called 'the Disc Doctor' that worked for years (young kids that can't put away CD's :rolleyes: ) I swear i fixed hundreds
 
I always polish them by hand with toothpaste to get the big scratches. Once I have a uniform surface, I switch to 80% coco solid un-sweetened baking chocolate. The secret is to start from the inside and work out to the edge of the disk. I have fixed many disks this way. Also if you hold the disk up to a light and you can see light specs all over it from the top substrate being scratched, you can fill the scratches from the label side with a sharpie marker and most of the time the disk will now read in that spot where it didn't before. I have managed to salvage many disks for archiving where most CD players couldn't read them before. I have managed to pull perfect albums off of disks that you would think are total goners. PC drives have pretty good error correction which has saved my ass more than once. Many times where a disk won't play through a song at all I can get a perfect rip. Might want to think about trying that before you toss a disk that looks dead.

Also, If you find that you have micro swirls and it won't play in a conventional player, you can use DRY Corn Starch to buff it out to a perfect shine. Many times that last step is needed if you want it to play in a car CD player.;)
 
Use some “Scratch B Gone”. Seriously though, I think the Vaseline is basically filling in or hiding the scratches like any wax based product would. It’s not repairing the disc. Also, applying it with a paper towel seems wrong. I think this article is bogus.
 
I've only ever had issues with scratched discs when it came to audio cd's, and that's because they don't include the error protection that data discs do. If I ever noticed one of my discs looking scratched, I'd make a new copy and start using it asap.
 
+1 for Brasso, I have had way better luck with cleaning plastic than toothpaste and is much more consistant. Less minty though. From what I've seen Novus scratch remover works really well but seems pretty close in makeup as Brasso and costs a lot more. Comes in 3 differnt levels or power though. I find that rubbing alcohol is great for cleaning most electronics plastics (game cartridges and consoles in particular) but can strip paint, remove texture or even melt things so be careful.
 
weebling1 said:
I used to have a tool called 'the Disc Doctor' that worked for years (young kids that can't put away CD's :rolleyes: ) I swear i fixed hundreds
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According to reviews I've read back when (I believe Maximum PC had the best ones) this seemed to always be the one product that actually worked. I had one of the original models and it seemed to work pretty well but took a lot of work and effort. It also leaves a distinct pattern on a disk so it may be difficult to sell or trade that disk.

Another thing to be aware of is a lot of rental and used disk places will resurface a disk for you with their pro machines for a couple bucks. Non-big name retailers tend to do this more often then big chains.

I don't see how Vasaline would be a good choice since the whole idea of Brasson, Novus, Toothpaste is that they have small pieces of abrasive material in them that lightly "sands" the plastic. Vasiline shouldn't have anything abrasive in it. I'm guessing that the paper towel they are using is actually doing the work here.
 
+1 to toothpaste. Never thought it would work, but the disk was so bad that I decided to try it and it worked.
 
Looks like toothpaste is a miracle substance. Not only does it make your dentist happy, it can apparently descratch CDs/DVDs and clear hazy/yellow headlights. :cool:
 
shaving foam works and is not abrasive like toothpaste.
 
Bananas, chocolate, summer sausage...this thread is making me hungry.
 
HyperTension said:
If you leave a mushroom print on the DVD, will that affect playback????
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holy shit... if apes ate mushrooms to become people, maybe rom drives can read dvd's with spore prints on them and it would create the first intelligent machines:eek:
 
Thanks for this, this is relevant to my interests. My wife's Wii Fit disk is scratched and she's giving me the evil eye.
 
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