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| rjisinspired |
| Posted: Jan 18 2012, 10:30 AM |
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Looks like a DVD I have from last year has something on it, don't know what, on the inner part of the disk in a small area. I took a lint free micro-cloth and gently wiped it, no pressure applied, and very little of this debris came off.
I have read about the number of cleaners, including household ones, but I wanted to get other opinions about it.
I had the disk in the drive before noticing this debris and the drive sounded like it was about to pop while it was spinning, lol. I won't put it back into the drive. It's probably not that important of a disk. I have never had this happen before in the 10 or so plus years backing up data, to have a disk with a little bit of crust on it, lol. |
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| malky |
| Posted: Jan 18 2012, 01:36 PM |
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Last one I had to clean was from the library.
Wouldn't play in the standalone.
Used an old toothbrush and a little toothpaste, under running water, stroking one direction from the centre to the rim.
Finished of with thorough rinsing and patted dry with towel |
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| evropej |
| Posted: Jan 18 2012, 03:15 PM |
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There are polishing tools out there and they are not that expensive. I believe you can successfully do it a couple of times before the plastic wears down to low. I suggest cleaning and backing it up after the first try whichever method you use. You can also use software to try and read the device, some software will more the head in from both directions trying to read bad sectors and will try multiple times like alcohol120. Bottom line, always keep things backed up on a hard drive. I have departed from the CDs and DVDs as a backup medium. |
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| IanB |
| Posted: Jan 18 2012, 09:24 PM |
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On the first attempt I would just use warm water with a very mild detergent.
Unlike CD's which read through the polycarb to the top surface (write on the top label with a biro to destroy the disk), DVD's have the active information on the bottom surface under a very thin layer of relatively soft material. This make double sided DVD's possible.
Applying pressure to the protective layer, like scratching at gunk with a fingernail, can deform and hence damage the delicate information containing layer(s).
Generally it is not possible to "polish" scratches out of the surface like with CD's. The best approach I have found is to use a very high grade automotive wax to temporarily fill and mask the scratches. This hopefully renders the disk more readable. Then just copy the disk to a new one.
The quality of the protective layer varies significantly. From effectively just Glad cling wrap (cheapest/nastiest), right up to the diamond tough 3M coating used to make spectacles scratch proof (archive grade). |
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| rjisinspired |
| Posted: Jan 19 2012, 10:25 AM |
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Thanks everyone for your input. I will do my best to gently clean and immediately transfer the files back then reburn to a new DVD.
Malky: I'm taking it to do this with a very soft toothbrush? Interesting.
Evropej: I like the hard drive concept of backing up, better than optical media, but due to the amount of backing up I do a lot, throw in some OCD, and I could easily go through hard drives very fast. Only if hard drives were cheaper I would definitely go that route.
Is the alcohol120 program a full trial version or is it crippled?
IanB: When I lightly rubbed the DVD that night with the cloth I felt a kind of softness, hard to explain. I rubbed in a circular motion. I did it wrong.  |
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| evropej |
| Posted: Jan 19 2012, 04:56 PM |
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If you consider the cost of DVDs, I dont think hard drives are a bad option. 100 DVDs can backup 470 gigs max at a minimum cost of 25 bucks. Thats 50 bucks a terabyte. Take into consideration the time they last, the amount of time you will spend burning disks and you soon realize its a batter worth not fighting for. Also, my favorite, looking for that dvd with the info you need. Its a mess, I was down that road. Alcohol is a full functional trial. Checkout their site for more info., |
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| rjisinspired |
| Posted: Jan 19 2012, 05:28 PM |
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True. I just had the thought of backing up every single, solitary, CD/DVD I have, just thinking about that is a nightmare. We're talking since 2001, lol. I have played many of them back and they read fine.
I would need a handful of DVD drives because I know they would wear out quick with a project like this, transferring them back to computer and then to another hard drive. I'll probably be 60 years-old when I'm done with them all, lol.
Oh yeah, can't forget the old zip disks and floppies too.
Who was it that said something like: "Nobody will ever need more than 20-40 megabytes?" I would like to say it was Bill Gates but I could be wrong about that.
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| evropej |
| Posted: Jan 19 2012, 06:02 PM |
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He actually said no one will need more than 640K, thats why level one cache in processors is so low.
Trust me it wont take that long to transfer them to a hard drive, I did it and I am so glad.
Now I have all my data ready and available in just a couple of clicks.
Suffer once or suffer every day for the rest of your life.
Its simple lol
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| freedomdwarf |
| Posted: Feb 12 2012, 08:23 PM |
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If I have to clean a DVD I use a few drips of washing-up liquid (neat), rub in small circles very gently, then gradually add water a few drips at a time (still rubbing) until eventually your finger starts squeaking on the DVD. By that time it really is squeaky clean!
If you haven't got rid of whatever is stuck on the DVD you'll have to rely on read-retries when trying to copy it. Using any commercial cleaner (apart from isopropyl alchohol) is pretty much suicide for the DVD as many make the surface cloudy which just compounds the problem.
I use Imageburn (which is completely free) to make ISO images of my discs and save them to hard drive. There's no way I could afford to buy enough DVD's to make a backup and HD is usually a much safer medium IMHO (and cheaper).
Same as backing up loads of info etc - I use Imageburn to copy files to a DVD image. I don't bother burning it, I just save the ISO image with all the info on it - it's easy to retrieve and certainly saves the laser trying to burn all this stuff!
Just my 2 cents.
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| rjisinspired |
| Posted: Feb 12 2012, 10:36 PM |
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Thanks freedomdwarf
I'll try the washing liquid scheme. I've been using Imgburn for ages for burning data disks. I'll have to search for some cheaper hard drives and use this way of backing up my stuff. |
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| RobertNelson |
 Posted: Feb 13 2012, 10:08 PM |
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I soak the dvd in very warm water with some dish soap (palmolive or similar). Kinda like when you have food stuck on the bottom of a pan that needs to be soaked before washing. After 15- 20 minutes, whatever you had on there should have melted off so just dry with a soft cloth from the inside of the disc out and you should be good to go! |
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| freedomdwarf |
| Posted: Feb 14 2012, 11:04 AM |
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That's ok if it's a plain DVD or one that you haven't printed on!!
Most of my home-grown DVD's are burned using full-face printable one's and I always print on them rather than using a one of those DVD maker pens coz I think it looks a lot neater.
The side-effect of that is you couldn't immerse them to wash them in that manner - all the ink would blur into an unreadable mess.
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| IanB |
| Posted: Feb 14 2012, 09:00 PM |
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Oooo,  Water soluble ink, what sort of printer do you have ?
The jet inks I have experienced need harsh chemicals to remove them (and destroy the disk in the process). |
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| dloneranger |
| Posted: Feb 14 2012, 09:44 PM |
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Even if the ink was fine, the paper the labels are made from isn't known for it's water resistance
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| IanB |
| Posted: Feb 15 2012, 06:56 AM |
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| QUOTE (dloneranger @ Feb 15 2012, 08:44 AM) | | Even if the ink was fine, the paper the labels are made from isn't known for it's water resistance |
 Okay stick on paper labels, fair enough. I was assuming printable blanks. |
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