You may have a disc, be it music or data, that is scratched and will not read in your optical disc drive no matter what you do to it. Can it be saved?

Possibly. There are a few things you can try to save that disc.

Hardware method: It could be just the drive you’re using

If the disc won’t read in your optical drive, try another one that’s close by. If you don’t have one to spare, try a friend’s computer.

Interesting side note: Older optical drives with slower read speeds have a much higher chance of reading a maybe/maybe-not bad disc than newer drives do because they don’t spin up as fast. Being that laptop optical drives are typically slower, if you have a laptop with a CD/DVD drive, try that. You might be successful.

Software method: Using Nero Burning ROM to attempt a super-slow-read copy

Nero Burning ROM (paid application) has been around a long time and is arguably one of the best disc copying software utilities ever made - if not the best.

If the disc you have will spin up but will not read, Nero might be able to save it or at least at a good chunk of it.

When you copy a disc using Nero Burning ROM (part of the Nero 9 suite), it will first try to copy at the maximum speed possible. When it runs into a part of the disc it can’t read properly, Nero will purposely slow down the drive (all the way to 1x if necessary) and try every single possible way to read the data. If it can’t read the data, it will skip that part and go to the next readable portion and move on.

The disc copy make take a really long time - but you might be able to save whatever was on the disc or at least a good portion of it. If it’s just a portion, better to have something than nothing, right?

I have saved discs with Nero Burning ROM that no other app was able to copy, so I can attest that yes, it does work when all others fail. And if Nero fails.. well.. try washing the disc first (see below).

Physically doing something to the disc: Washing it first

CDs and DVDs are made of two things, aluminum and plastic. The outside shell is plastic, the shiny part is the aluminum. The part that is scratched is the plastic.

Plastic can be washed with just about anything, but the goal is to not scratch it any further.

Paper towels and non-scented ammonia-free glass cleaner (like Windex) do work. Why paper towels and not tissue paper? Because tissue paper is an abrasive and will scratch the plastic surface even worse.

Tip on cleaner used: Do not use anything labeled as a degreaser (like Formula 409). "Straight" glass cleaner is what you want.

Tip on paper towels used: Unscented, plain, no patterns such as Bounty or Brawn.

(Incidentally this is the same reason you never clean eyeglasses with tissue paper because it will scratch those up over time as well.)

Can you read a disc that is physically cracked?

Example: You leave a disc on the couch and forget about it. Later on you go to sit on the couch and watch TV, then…

CRACK!

Uh-oh. You sat on the disc. Very cracked but still together.

Is the disc still readable? Believe it or not, yes - or at least with CDs. A CD which has an "outside in" straight crack in it (from the outer edge to inner edge but not to the center) can be read as long as it’s even with the rest of the disc. However there is the possibility the disc might shatter when in the optical drive. Chances are this probably won’t happen - but it might.

DVDs when cracked usually cannot be read at all. If this happens to you, toss the disc out because there’s not anything you can do about that.

Tip to avoid this scenario: Don’t sit or step on discs (duh).

[Cracked CD photo by hermanturnip]

In the United States we don’t necessarily have a problem (yet) with what’s known as "capped bandwidth" (i.e. your ISP puts a usage limit on how much data you can transfer per month), but for other places it’s a big deal because once you tap the limit, your ISP slows you down to snail-crawl speeds until next month when the limit is reset.

This information is also useful to those on broadband connections and wi-fi spots where speed counts the most (the less you load the less time you have to wait).

1. Use RSS

Whether you use Bloglines, Google Reader or a client like RSS Bandit, using RSS is faster and uses much less bandwidth than loading a web site directly. PCMech, for example, has article content delivered via RSS.

2. Don’t load Flash content

Concerning file size, text is small, images are relatively small but Flash content is rarely small. You can uninstall the Flash plugin entirely but if you don’t want to do that (and I don’t blame you), use the Firefox extension Flashblock instead where you can turn it off and on at whim.

3. Use an e-mail client instead of web-based mail

Every time you load web-based mail in a browser (no matter what provider you use) it’s full of coding that on load makes it a bit large file-size wise. And if it’s a free mail provider there are also advertisements loaded in as well. If you use a traditional e-mail client like Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird or Windows Live Mail it’s loaded locally and the only bandwidth it uses is when you send or receive mail.

Tip: Have the client download headers only whether using POP or IMAP. This way no mail is fully downloaded unless you specifically instruct the client to do it. This is especially useful if you receive file attachments often.

4. Use a free multi-protocol instant messaging app

Free multi-protocol instant messaging apps don’t load advertisements and purposely don’t have all the "cool" features from-service clients do which cuts bandwidth usage (every little bit counts). Some choices are Trillian, Pidgin, and Miranda.

5. Turn your computer off when not in use

Although this is really obvious, if your computer is making no network requests it’s not using any bandwidth at all. Most of us leave our computers on all the time, but if bandwidth is a concern, turn it off when you’re not using it.

Think the floppy disk is dead technology?

OpenOffice 3… floppy disk!

Google Docs.. floppy disk again!

Windows Live Writer… FLOPPY DISK!

ThinkFree.. ACK! FLOPPY DISK AGAIN!

You cannot escape the floppy..

I think it’s about time to.. oh, I dunno.. change the save icon to something besides a 3.5-inch floppy diskette.

We’ve all been there. We’re spending a little free time online catching up on our web surfing and social media addictions. We find something really cool that we want to read or a video to watch. Only problem is that you don’t have time to consume that content right then.

You could bookmark it, sure. But, how about we make it truly portable.

Continued