Comments on: Does Toothpaste Truly Make A CD Or DVD Work Again?

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:05:30 +0000

I have heard that rubbing a disk with the inside of a freshly peled banana skin is supposed to do the same thing. Although I have never tried it myself.

By: 3dSurveyor

3dSurveyor — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:11:45 +0000

I would not use a paper towel for this, as it is abrasive and could scratch the disc even more. Use a soft, lint free cloth. Also, when polishing, you need to go in an edge-to-middle direction, not parallel with the side of the disc, or so I have always read.

By: marc

marc — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:27:44 +0000

Toothpaste is also handy for polishing out light scratches in automotive paint as well as removing water marks on furniture.

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:42:09 +0000

Back when CD’s were new and there were no optical computer drives yet, I used to use cigarette ash and a cd cleaning kit with a very soft cloth to polish scratches and make my music playable again. The important thing is to use a center to edge motion. The reason is that if you use a circular motion you could scratch a track down it’s length and make it unreadable. An optical drive has error correction built into it and if it is missing a bit or a byte from a track/file it can usually fill it in and make it work or angle the laser a little and read around the scratch. I have a machine I got from Office Depot with an abrasive pad on the edge of a 1/4 inch wide soft disk which will evenly take off a layer of plastic from a damaged disk and correct most scratch errors.

The only thing is that if the scratch gets into the foil layer you are out of luck since that is the data layer and when enough of it is missing no optical drive can correct the problem. If you are lucky you can read the other files on the disk but not the ones with the scratch.

By: Della R

Della R — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:38:32 +0000

I have used toothpaste successfully for some years now, and it’s always worked for me. For bad greasy fingerprints on DVD’s I’ve also used Dawn dishwashing liquid & warm water. I use a corner of a paper towel wetted with warm water & just a very small touch of the soap. I lightly go around the disc until i can actually see the suds (about 4 to 5 times) in a circular motion. I then take a clean paper towel wetted in warm water and lightly wipe off the suds, then buff it up with an old piece of clean T shirt. Most of the time this works well for me, but sometimes the discs are just too far gone to rescue. Anything is worth a try if the information on the discs was something important or personal to you. Otherwise into the old shredder it goes.

By: pogo

pogo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:35:06 +0000

have never used it on a disk, but should work. toothpaste is very good polish for silver and gold, so should work very well on a disk. I use special cleaning fluid for camera lenses. you might test baking soda paste sometime since it is good substitute for toothpaste.

By: LuisR

LuisR — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:49:52 +0000

This works because toothpaste is abrasive. It is meant for polishing the hard surface of our teeth but it is very mild to avoid damaging their hard yet delicate surface. I purchased a CD repair kit many years ago that has an abrasive paste not unlike toothpaste which works wonders for damaged discs.

By: Peter Cully

Peter Cully — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:25:48 +0000

Toothpaste, like any mild (and mild is the operative word) abrasive will take a thin layer of plastic from the surface of the disc except for where the scratches are which reduces the depth of the scratch, thus reducing the likelyhood of the scratch rendering the disc unreadable. A commercial metal polish used for either silver or brass (known in this part of the world {New Zealand} as “Silvo” or “Brasso”, Brasso being more agressive) will also work but whatever is used the disc must be washed with plenty of water and a good quality hand soap then thoroughly rinsed and allowed to air dry in a place where there is no direct sunshine. Do not use a cloth or paper towel to dry the disc as this can give more scratches. I have never tried this with data or video discs but it works well on music CDs.

By: Puchu

Puchu — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:09:45 +0000

This also worked for me too. My DVD was not even getting detected ,then I tried the toothpaste method and some how it got detected but showing blank. But I was able to recover all the data on that disc by a few opensource tools.

By: JimmyDee

JimmyDee — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:53:14 +0000

Yes toothpaste will bring a disk back. I had a software disk that came damaged from the store. It was scratched so bad it would not work. About 15 min of polishing the disk with toothpaste and a good rinse, all was well. I’ve done a few data disks as well.