Fixing a slightly damaged CD

[teeitup]

I found a CD with a small scratch on it. It plays and I can rip it. The problem is there is this annoying little background ticking noise. The CD would be very hard to replace. It is a commercial product not a home grown burn.

Does anyone have experience working with issues like this?

Do these tools I see in the stores work at all?

Thanks,

[amcluesent]

Does EAC report problems with the rip? If not, IMHO the 'ticking' is on the mix, not a problem with the CD.

[SuperQ]

Look at what used CD stores do. They have a polishing wheel with a light compound and soft buffing wheel. If I remember correctly, they buff from center to edge, not rotationally.

You should use a "secure" ripper like EAC (windows), cdparanoia (linux) or Max (Mac OS).

[Skunk]

Do these tools I see in the stores work at all?

There's a nice wiki entry on this topic: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?DiscRepair

I'd get the secure ripper first, but then again some of my worst discs were most successfully read by EAC's non-secure modes, so it may be worth trying burst mode too.

[bernt]

I had cd's scratched so bad that even EAC wont ripp them. After rubbing some toothpaste with my fingers on the cd's and washed them of with water they ripp just fine.

[avta]

I've used a product called Skip Doctor Repair kit. It's not expensive and does a good job with cd's of all sorts as well as dvd's. I have the older manual kind. I think the new ones are motorized but I haven't tried them.

[teeitup]

Thanks everyone.

Toothpaste? Who knew.

I already use cdparanoia with Grip. Maybe I'll play with it on the command line.

The Wiki link was very informative. I'll look into some of the products sold for this purpose. I'm afraid of losing the CD completely. It seems my fear isn't warranted.

I find it kind of sad that the Record Stores have become virtually extinct. There isn't a single "record store" left in town. Target is it now.


Later,