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Step 2Cleaning Time!
Now it's time to apply the petroleum jelly. I will demonstrate both ways to do this (the tissue and the disc cleaner).
**UPDATE** Thanks to all of the comments, I have learned that you should not rub in small circular motions as show in picture #1, but instead follow inner perimeter of the disk.
**UPDATE** Thanks to all of the comments, I have learned that you should not rub in small circular motions as show in picture #1, but instead follow inner perimeter of the disk.
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Thank you for the article anything that helps us retrieve our data and prevent it disappearing for ever is good. Once it is repaired I would recommend making 2 copies one on a HD and the other on a new optical disk.
backup the backups!
Thanks, gpotvin, great instructable, works like a champ!!
HOWEVER if the top (metal foil / printer layer) was scratched you are out of luck because that layer backs the actual data (the plastic is just a millimeter thick chunk of plastic protecting the rest.
I don't mean it is impossible to make one last a long time in a lab, but that is not the same as regular use and exposure to UV, and the acceptance that discs are not made perfectly.
Being stored digitally means little, just as you would find analog degraded at some point where you found it unacceptable, eventually read value for a digital 0 or 1 can drift across the threshold for determination of 0 or 1, and frankly the kinds of damage that would effect an optical disc even if it were analog would easily prevent reading proper digital bit values... hence we have the need to remove scratches, and if we did not, we'd be able to read it as analog too except that would be a lower bit density/capacity.
It will not last forever, it is pointless to suggest "as long as it stays in perfect physical condition" because we could say EVERYTHING lasts forever so long as it stays in perfect physical condition.
What you do not understand is everything does not stay in perfect physical condition and although a CD will usually last a bit longer than a magnetic storage medium regardless of whether it is digital or analog, it is simply incorrect to claim forever and no trolling changes that.
You're arguing with someone who majored in material sciences and works with materials similar to those that DVDs are constructed of every day, so you're fighting a losing battle here.
2) I did not troll by writing "anal-retentive", you did. I am being nice but you don't deserve it. :)
3) I am not looking for debate, I am spreading accurate information while it conflicts with your vanity that whatever you write isn't automatically right if only you write enough to argue.
4) Face it, you are ignorant of the technology. It is not relevant whether it is analog or digital, and it is pointless to think in terms of "if it stays in perfect condition". As I already educated you, ALL THINGS that stay in perfect condition would never lose data. You make a pointless distinction because you don't know what matters, don't know the science behind it.
5) You are the one being argumentative while I am citing real world fact. The real world fact is, there is no use of media that does not subject it to wear, to harm, to UV rays, to eventual problems.
6) You transferred wedding photos ONE W_H_O_L_E YEAR ago? You must be joking, even shorter lived magnetic tapes last well over ten years, and many CDRs or DVDs that people have made turned out rotten after less than 3 years even safely stored away because of poor manufacturing and materials.
You do not work with materials similar to DVDs everyday in any meaningful scientific way. Perhaps you stock them at Walmart but it is not the same as knowing - which you do not.
I have wasted too much of my time already, if you don't want to learn then at least others will be able to read the info I provide and know there is no such thing as depending on a disc "forever" because it is a disc, but especially not because it is merely digital. History has already proven what you assumed in error.
1) The process that your video store used was to literally sand down the disc. That minimizes the scratches, however like she had said, it is only good for one or two goes, before you've thinned the disk too much, and it will warp during spinning, and become unreadable (Not permanently.... I mean it will deflect during it's rotation because of the forces of mass, velocity, and centrifuge being applied to the now-to-flimsy plastic disc..... to be nerdy for a second lol)
2) Applying something onto the disc, not designed to be abrasive, but to fill cracks, is a process that can be repeated indefinitely until either too much damage has happened from use, or you lose interest in the game. It's up to you to find the "best" one that works for you, and then get a supply of it!
I personally would prefer the second option for obvious reasons, the first method also leaves circular micro scratches on the disc if they didn't use a secondary, finer, buff wheel.
Hope that sheds light on something you may not have thought about yet, if you did... sorry for the annoying reminder ;)