To repair a scratched CD, does clear nail polish work?

[Ken90630]

I recently built a new P3-based machine out of a bunch of spare parts I had accumulated. Nothing fancy, but I have some uses for it.

Anywho, I have an old version of Microsoft Office -- Office 2000 Premium to be exact -- that I thought I'd install on it. I went to do that today, only to find the installation hangs up and an error code comes up. So I take a good look at the CD surface and see it has a notable scratch on it.

How it got there, I dunno. I'm normally pretty careful with CDs. But the fact is that it's there. So ... rather than fork over a king's ransom for a new version of Office, I thought I might try to repair this CD. I've never done it before, but I think I read/heard somewhere that clear nail polish might work.

Anyone tried this, and if so, did it work? I know there are CD repair kits out there, but they're ~ $30ish and I'd really prefer to not go to that expense if nail polish will work. Particularly when I can borrow some nail polish from my sister for free.

Oh, and I called Microsoft to see about getting a replacement. I figured no prob since I have the product I.D. # and the License Key #, right? They said Office 2000 Premium is discontinued and, in typical Microsoft fashion, basically told me to go pound sand and buy a newer copy of Office. :|

 

[Ika]

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/77

^ Toothpaste is probably the first thing I'd try, but nail polish would probably work too.

 

[bruceb]

Since you have a legit cd and key you might be able to redownload and burn the program to a cd from here:

http://www.filesearching.com/cgi-bin/s?...ice+2000+premium&t=f&d=&l=en&x=18&y=18

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: bruceb
Since you have a legit cd and key you might be able to redownload and burn the program to a cd from here:

http://www.filesearching.com/cgi-bin/s?...ice+2000+premium&t=f&d=&l=en&x=18&y=18

Hmmm ... I went to that site (thanks for the tip ), but I don't know what I'm doing there. I can't figure out how to navigate it to download the files. Can anyone clue me in here?

EDIT: Thanks, Aflac, for the polishing link. I tried toothpaste, some plastic polish, and some Brasso. None of 'em even touched the scratch. Maybe it's a deep scratch that went all the way into the metal substrate. I dunno ... it's still dead.

I guess I have nothing to lose by trying some of my sister's nail polish. I hope she has some clear stuff (I'm guessing a pink blurb on the surface prolly won't do the trick ).

 

[BFG10K]

Nail polish will more than likely melt the surface of the disc. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Fenixgoon]

acetone reacts with some plastics, so it all depends on what plastic the cd is made from (i dont know).

toothepaste and glue work, IIRC. i would expect glue to work slightly better since toothepaste is slightly abrasive

 

[kmmatney]

There are some programs you can try that will attempt to extract all useable data from a Cd, and fill in bad sections with blanks. I've used this to copy info from scratched CDs and burn a new CD that worked. This will work if you don't actually need anything from the scratched section, which you may not depending on what options you install.

One freeware progam you can try is CopyCat 2.0.

"Copy Cat 2.0 actually skip the bytes which are not readable from file and copy all other bytes therefore it extracts max
data which is normally not done by windows copy operation. "

http://www.vcsoftwares.com/cc.html

 

[Ken90630]

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. I appreciate it.

I think I'll try that Copy Cat 2.0. I tried to copy the whole CD onto my hard drive, with the intention of then running the Setup.exe file and seeing what would happen. I got about 3 folders copied when it hung up. It said it couldn't copy "FrontPage.somethingorother (I forget the exact file name) -- redundancy error." But 'ya know what? That's the one app in the Office suite I don't need! So if I can get everything except FrontPage, I could easily live with that.

Thanks a mil, man. I'm too tired to mess with this anymore tonight, but I'll give CopyCat a whirl tomorrow morning.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
acetone reacts with some plastics, so it all depends on what plastic the cd is made from (i dont know).

toothepaste and glue work, IIRC. i would expect glue to work slightly better since toothepaste is slightly abrasive

CDs are made of polycarbonate.

 

[Frodolives]

My local pawn shop has a machine that resurfaces disk wonderfully. It's a professional machine that cost them about 4 grand I think, and they charge $2 to do a disk (game/dvd/whatever).

There would of course be risk involved, but if all else fails I'd be willing to take it there and mail it back to you. Just a thought, although you may find such an operation in your area.

 

[bruceb]

You're right ... that site is hard to figure out .. I couldn't find the exact link
to the download either

Try this site .. they have it listed along with a file that tells how to download it

http://oth2.net/s/

 

[NuclearNed]

Brass polish works. Here is my firsthand account of using it.

 

[Smilin]

Car wax for the tough stuff and (yes this is gross) forehead oil for the minor stuff.

 

[BFG10K]

I've tried toothpaste and only succeeded in scratching the surface of the disc even more.

 

[Ken90630]

*UPDATE*

kmmatney: Well, I downloaded Copy Cat 2.0. The download & install went fine. When I go to use the program, however, it seems that I have to copy each and every file on the CD one at a time. Well, God knows how many individual files there are on the Office 2000 Premium CD -- easily hundreds, maybe thousands. That would take forever.

I clicked on the "Videoshot" link on that site, and it seems to confirm what I said above. You can't just click a whole folder or do a Select All (like Ctrl+A). If anyone wants to try it and see if I'm missing something, by all means go for it. (It's a very quick download -- it was done almost instantly.)

Frodolives: Thanks a lot for the offer. If I can't figure something else out that's easier, maybe I'll take you up on it.

bruceb: Well, that oth2 site was a wild goose chase. Spent 10 minutes clicking around to no avail. In a way, that may be a blessing in disguise 'cuz the home page looks a little dicey (pron links on their forum, etc.). Who knows what else (spyware or worse?) might have ended up on my machine if I'd actually found a usable link. Nevertheless, thanks for trying to help.

NuclearNed: I tried Brasso (twice) and it didn't even touch the scratch. And after several tries with toothpaste, plastic polish and car wax too, there now are some light swirl scratches that weren't there before. I'm afraid if I do much more, I'm gonna make things even worse.

I would think that plastic polish (I bought mine at an auto parts store) would be the ticket for superficial scratches, and that Brasso (or similar metal polish) would be the ticket if the scratch went thru the polycarb protective layer and into the metal substrate. In my case, neither has worked.

Will sleep on this and give it some more thought in the morning. Thanks, all, for the tips.

 

[Fin]

Just to give a heads up on Logiccode, the makers of copy cat. I just read an article which claims this company is placing malware in its software. Beware!
-Fin

 

[bruceb]

Sorry it couldn't help ... Just a question: Where on the Office install is it hanging ? ?
On CD1 or CD2 ? ? ... CD2 mostly has things like Clip Art and other, nice, but not
essential files ... CD3 is a Tutorial and is not needed at all

I have Office XP Pro 2002 and also Office 2000 Pro CD1
I could try to upload it, if it is the correct one

 

[Ken90630]

Sorry it couldn't help ... Just a question: Where on the Office install is it hanging ? ? On CD1 or CD2 ? ?

It hangs about 60 seconds into CD1 installation, during the "installing files" part of the process. When it gets to the 'trouble spot,' I can hear my CD drive spin down and then spin up and it cycles like that for about a minute or so (I guess it's retrying). Then an error message comes up, offering the choice of Retry or Cancel. Retry just results in the same thing, so my only recourse is to stop the installation.

I have Office XP Pro 2002 and also Office 2000 Pro CD1
I could try to upload it, if it is the correct one

That would be awesome. Like I said earlier, I have the Product I.D. and License Key (retail), so all I need is the files and a way to install them.

 

[bruceb]

Which do you need ? ?

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: bruceb
Which do you need ? ?

Office Pro 2000 CD1. :thumbsup:

 

[bruceb]

Do you have a way to get a large file (around 560MB or so) ? ?

Let me knowwhere and I will try to upload it for you (probably
Saturday morning)

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: bruceb
Do you have a way to get a large file (around 560MB or so) ? ?

Let me know where and I will try to upload it for you (probably
Saturday morning)

I'm not sure. Maybe. I don't have a Web site or any hosting capabilities right now. I have Comcast broadband (cable), but I don't know how much storage capacity I'm allowed or how big a file can be sent over the 'wires.' I'll see if I can find out and then I'll PM you. (I'm gonna to be really busy this afternoon, so it may be this evening or tomorrow morning.)

And needless to say, thanks a lot for the effort you're going to. I really appreciate it.

 

[kmmatney]

When I used copyCoat 2.0, it was to repair a damaged DVD movie, so their weren't many files, and I knew which one was bad. In many cases it's just a few files that aren't copyable, so you can try copying from the CD from the hard drive, with files in groups of 20 or so, and figure out the bad one's and use CopyCat just for those files.

I remember when I first foudn CopyCat, I came across a few other freeware programs that did the same thing. I'll see if I can hunt them down.

Here are some:
YCopy (skips unreadable files, and gives a report of the files that couldn't be read)
You could use copycat to then try to get the good portions of those files.
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Util...s/Backup_and_Copy_Utilities/Ycopy.html