We check out several children's DVDs and CDs from our library each month. We love the library, but the downfall to their wide variety of educational movies? Most are damaged and don't play without skipping or freezing in our DVD player.
I experimented with a few different techniques of safely repairing the scratched DVDs: soap and water, toothpaste, Windex. None seemed to make any sort of difference on the playback quality.
I knew that the toothpaste was supposed to get rid of the grooves and scratches, but it wasn't doing the trick.
I thought something thicker and more waxy would be easier to apply and stick to the surface of the disc. So I pulled out the Pledge furniture polish and tried it out on a freshly-cleaned DVD. I'm not kidding, the results were amazing! Far better than any other method I tried.
Since discovering Pledge works to repair scratched DVDs, I've started the routine of washing and polishing all the DVDs we check out before I ever pop them into the DVD player. Since then, I've only had one DVD that was too damaged to work with my magical method. Every other one has played back just fine!
Grab furniture polish and some cleaning cloths (microfiber cloths are the best!). Then follow these steps to repair scratched DVDs:
- Wet a soft microfiber cloth with warm water, plop on a drop of dish soap, and wash the DVD in a circular motion.
- Rinse the DVD and dry it with a dry, nonabrasive cloth.
- Use a Pledge wipe or spray some Pledge furniture polish (in the yellow can) on a dry, lint-free cloth. Apply it to the DVD in short, strokes from the inside of the disk to the outer rim (against the grain). Keep doing this until the surface of the disc is coated.
- Use the other side of the dry cloth to lightly rub the disc in a circular motion until it's wiped clean.
- Put the disc in the DVD player and play it. If it doesn't work, repeat steps 3 and 4 and try again!
If your DVD, CD or Blu-ray still doesn't work, apply Brasso metal polish on and around the scratches. You need to be very gentle with this–it's intended to polish tough metals, not delicate wood furniture!
Brasso works in a different way than Pledge does on discs. Pledge furniture polish is a waxy substance that fills in the scratches. Brasso smooths and buffs the scratches out. It's effective, but work carefully with it and focus on the most damaged parts.
These are the important products mentioned above:
Note: don't use Pledge multi-surface spray in the blue can. It works great to repel dust from electronics and everything else, but it doesn't have that waxy consistency that's needed for fixing DVDs.
Do you use a different method for repairing scratched DVDs? Leave a comment letting me know your best advice!
Last Updated on July 22, 2021 by Robert Jackson
It’s such an enjoyment to watch a DVD movie sitting on the couch at home or use a game disk to play a video game. However, the delicate DVD will always bring you bummers, one of which is the scratched surface.
Frequent use, mistreatment, improper storage, pointy stuff, are all the possible causes of a scratched DVD. Some DVD lovers might be lucky that those scrapes aren’t deep enough that the DVD is still readable and playable with a built-in fault-tolerant chip. However, some viewers can no longer play this badly damaged DVD.
To regain the movie/game/music, continue your reading on this tutorial and find several positive methods to fix your scratched DVD.
I. Notifications of fixing the DVD
Before starting to check out all the possible methods, there are a few things that you should know.
- Check if the scratched DVD is repairable.
Hold up the DVD in bright lights, and any light penetrates, or worse, goes through the disk, well, don’t waste your time in the disk anymore. Buy a new one because the data storage layer gets pierced.
If the scratched DVD is also bent, flatten it first. Put your DVD into a paper bag and lay it on a level surface like a table. Then, place a pile of books on the bag and wait for one day or two. The DVD will be unbent after that.
All the methods you find later require to wipe the disk. To avoid further damage, you’d better prepare a soft cloth or microfiber cloth. Some lens cleaning paper or eyeglass cloth will be good, too.
Cautions: Don’t use tissues that you think are very soft, however, in fact, it’s pretty rough from the micro view.
To fix a scratched DVD is all about filling up the scratches with some fillers like Vaseline, peanut butter, toothpaste, rubbing compound, wax materials. Be cautious that don’t apply any stuff that has alcohol or gasoline that will further destroy the DVD layers.
Clean all the possible dust and fingerprints with a window/glass cleaner or just some water spray and a soft cloth.
II. 6 home remedies for scratched DVD
In this section, we will go through 6 methods that will help us remove the scrapes from the disk to make it readable again. Also, some daily tools are involved. You may pick up whatever is near to you and start to repair your DVD.
Method 1 How to fix a badly scratched DVD with DVD Repair Kits
You may find out professional kits for DVD cleansing and repair in local or online stores that can remove most surface scratches on DVDs or CDs.
- A full set of DVD repair often includes a bottle of disc cleaning fluid(smudges wiping), a bottle of disc repair fluid(filler), and a soft cloth.
If you happen to have one set around or there’re some stores nearby that you can get one real soon, follow the recommended instructions it gives you to fix the scratched DVD.
Method 2 How to fix a scratched DVD with creamy peanut butter
I guess you should have a jar of peanut butter in the fridge as long as you are not allergic to it. Then, you can use the peanut butter to get rid of the DVD scratches thanks to its texture of viscosity and oiliness.
Caution: Do NOT use those crunchy peanut butter. Those remaining nuts will further ruin the surface.
How you can take advantage of it:
- First thing first, spoon up a little of the butter and rub it on the scratched surface.
- Gently smear it from the center to the edge with a circular motion to cover up the entire surface. Make sure every single scratch is full.
- Next, spray the windows cleaner or water on the covered surface, use the cloth to wipe it clean. Repeat the spray and wiping till no butter and water are left.
All gaps should be refilled and try to play the repaired DVD then.
Method 3 How to fix a scratched DVD with Vaseline
Same as the creamy peanut butter, Vaseline is also helpful to remove those annoying gaps on your DVD surface.
Smear a little bit of the Vaseline jelly on the damaged surface, fill all gaps. Spray water or glass cleaner on the disk and use a piece of soft cloth to wipe out the jelly.
Till no water and Vaseline remain, pop the DVD into your DVD player and play it.
Method 4 How to remove scratches from DVD with Banana
We may use a banana to clean the disabled DVD as well.
Peel a banana. Keep the peel, we will need it later
Slice the peeled banana and smash one or two slices. Rub the smashed banana onto the scraped surface in a circle, then, take out the peel and repeat that.
Later, clean the disk with the spray and cloth.
Method 5 How to repair a scratched DVD with toothpaste
The toothpaste can help, too. But the later cleaning will be pretty messed out since it’s too sticky.
Still, follow these:
Squeeze a little bit of toothpaste from the tube and smear it on the DVD. Rub it in a circle to cover up all scrapes. Spray it and clean the toothpaste. You must wipe all the paste out and leave no water on the surface as well.
Method 6 How to clean scratched DVD with furniture cleaner kits
To fix a scratched DVD, it’s all about filling the gaps that have been laid to the surface. And some furniture cleaner kits like furniture polish and magic eraser can be helpful to that.
Using polish:
Just rub the disc with the polish to fill every gap. Clean up the polish from the surface.
Using magic eraser:
First, make sure all dust is gone by using the spray and cloth. Then, gently use the DRY magic eraser to rub over the damaged surface in a circular motion. Stop when you see no scratches.
III. A warm tip to avoid data loss due to the scratched DVD
DVDs are just too fragile, why not make a copy of the disk content and store the duplication on a computer, portable hard drive, cloud, or another DVD? With the backup, we shall no more worry about the possible data loss due to a scratched, bent, cracked, or expired DVD.
To make a copy of the DVD, we will need help from your computer and a DVD copy program. Since most DVDs are copy-protected to stop piracy, only a powerful DVD copier helps us bypass the protection and back up the disc.
Recommendation for the DVD copy tool:
In case you don’t know much about the DVD ripper, try the popular and easy-to-use Leawo Prof. Media.
It’s an all-in-one DVD manager that helps you rip, copy, create, clone, and convert a DVD. With its copy feature, you can easily back up your DVDs on a computer in just a few minutes. The duplication is available to transfer to multiple devices with its great DVD protection removal capacity.
How to back up a DVD?
Step 1 Load up the DVD
Insert the DVD into the computer disk drive and launch the Leawo Prof. Media. Choose Blu-ray/DVD Copy to proceed. The copier will automatically detect and analyze the DVD.
Step 2 Decide the copy contents
Take a movie DVD as an example:
- You may click the Full Movie to rip all, or choose Main Movie for the film itself, or hit Custom Mode to select the preferred clips.
- Depending on the size of the content, choose DVD-5 ( 4.38 GB) or DVD-9 (7.92GB).
- Hit Copy to proceed.
Step 3 Choose the output format
The next thing you need is to decide whether you want to copy the DVD content as an ISO file or a DVD folder. Both formats will store the DVD content in lossless quality so that you don’t have to worry about data loss.
Then, choose a destination where you can locate the output file quickly or use the default one.
Step 4 Start the backup
Hit the Copy button to start the copy. Then, wait for a while.
And when it’s complete, go to the preset destination to locate the output. You are free to play and transfer the duplication on every device.
- Related reading: How to play ISO file on computer?
To warp up:
To fix a scratched DVD, you can use the previous methods with those tools that are easily accessible. However, if the disk is damaged too badly that nothing can fix it, simply purchase another one.
Also, it’s vital to make a backup of the DVD on your computer. Try the ripper tool I introduce above.