Toothpaste Myth For Scratched Game Discs

[Steo]

So has anybody ever had a game they like get scratched and no longer work but then actually try to use toothpaste to fix it? Well I've tried it a few times and it never worked for me.

I never thought that it would work and thought people were just making stuff up. Since I have a few scratched PS2 games I got for free I decided I'd try it out again and I figured out a few things.

Firstly if it's full of deep scratches it's just not going to work, but if it has a few light/medium ones that aren't too bad it has a chance.

So basically in the last month I've tried ordinary white toothpaste with a t-shirt to polish it or just my finger, which didn't do enough and seemed to leave the disc in the same condition.

Then I tried whitening toothpaste. The problem here is while this actually manages to buff out some of the medium scratches, it leaves you with hundreds of light scratches which might affect it even more.

After all of these tests I just figured something out today. I used a whitening toothpaste (pearl drops) on a Rayman 3 disc I had and just went in a radial (small circles) motion for a few minutes. The result of course was millions of light radial scratches all over the disc which made it look like a layer of dirt. This was clearly going to affect the laser trajectory in a bad way.

If you use Colgate cavity use "Great Regular Flavour" and not "Fresh Mint". Fresh Mint makes it worse you'll end up with even more scratches than pearl drops. I don't understand why, it must have little bits in it.

But then I took one of my lint free cloths for cleaning my classes, used the normal white paste (colgate maximum cavity protection regular), polished the game while using a couple drops of water every so often to stop the paste getting too dry. After polishing it for a few minutes I rinsed the disc off expecting it to look hideous and to my surprise it was shiny again.

So basically it can work depending on how badly your disc is scratched. Whitening toothpaste will buff out the scratches and then ordinary white toothpaste with a lint free cloth will polish it again making it look almost good as new.

With some games it's probably easier to just buy another copy but if it's a rare game or you haven't got money to dish out buying the game again, then it's worth a try.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend trying the toothpaste method because that way you can damage the disc even more so you're putting it to risk. My best suggestion, would be - like you said - buying a new copy of the game (except if it's rare).
Even if it's rare though, I would still not try the toothpaste method, hence what I said earlier.

If you don't want to buy a new copy of the game (although I would recommend doing so), I heard from a different forum that you could buy one of those disc cleaning kits from eBay, though that would shrink the CD (or DVD)'s size a bit. Don't worry about it though, since it will work fine anyway.

[PluMGMK]

My Granny used to swear by the toothpaste notion. Problem is, there are so many different types that saying unqualified "toothpaste" isn't really that informative! And hey, Colgate Maximum Cavity Protection Regular is what I use myself! Better keep that in mind so. Actually, I've a few Frasier DVDs that maybe could use a dose of it…

[Reese Riverson]

My Granny used to swear by the toothpaste notion. Problem is, there are so many different types that saying unqualified "toothpaste" isn't really that informative! And hey, Colgate Maximum Cavity Protection Regular is what I use myself! Better keep that in mind so. Actually, I've a few Frasier DVDs that maybe could use a dose of it…

DVDs need that cavity protection, dude. They will refuse to work otherwise.

[Steo]

It's OK to use normal paste that isn't too abrasive as long as you use a lint free cloth and don't lean too hard. The whitening stuff is what can make it worse if you lean hard on it.

I've heard of people using other stuff like brasso etc. but that stuff is irritant and might be risky.

Just use a lint free cloth and that colgate stuff and you'll be fine. Only thing is that's so light that you could have to buff it for nearly an hour but hey it'll work.

You could use a bit of whitening stuff at first to try buff the other scratches out but do not lean too hard because you don't want all the little scratches that's going to make to be deep. You can buff them out again and make it shiny with the colgate

Edit: Hoodcom

[Ray502]

I've heard of the toothpaste to clean discs a couple of times, but I've never tried it out. Instead I use a disc cleaner from GameStop; it works quite well most of time. I used it recently to clean fingerprints on Revolution, Wrath of Cortex and a few DVDs, and it did the job.

[Greeness]

I've seen some people online use disc repairing machines, but I don't know how efficiently they do the job.

[Steo]

My uncle had one of those machines before and it didn't work for him, but then again his disc was likely just very badly scratched.

I'm making some progress with that Rayman 3 disc, it's making it to the Ubisoft screen again before freezing. It couldn't get to the blue loading bar beforehand. I probably won't get this one itself to work because it's been broken years but I'm gonna keep trying for the sake of the Myth

[Steo]

This is what difference it makes. The top is after using abrasive whitening stuff and the bottom is 5 minutes of polishing with standard white toothpaste and a lint free cloth.

Edit: The centre ring on this disc has cracks but that won't affect it.

[Rayfist]

Toothpaste shit doesn't fix it, "resurfacing" doesn't fix it, NOTHING fixes scratches.

Take it from someone who's been collecting disc-based games for quite some time now, none of these "recovery" methods ever work, once a disc is scratched that's it, the data is lost. Resort to a new copy on ebay or go to a retro game store. My R1 copies were scratched for a while until I eventually got a 3rd copy which is near clean.

[Steo]

Not to say you're wrong or anything Rayfist but...

Toothpaste just fixed shit

This is the first time this copy of the game has worked in years thanks to colgate. I'm actually delighted

I understand where you're coming from though it never works because it depends on the method used, which is why I'm volunteering to test them out

Edit: I needed to use whitening paste which was like sanding the disc then the colgate which is like polishing it. If the scratches are too bad it won't work and to be fair this took me about an hour of polishing it over and over.

Also the data isn't lost unless you scratch the actual upper layer with the disc art off as the data is held underneath it and not on the plastic itself.

This worked for me and can work for others so your post should really say "it didn't work for me"

There's 3 reasons why it might not have worked for you (I'm trying to help by the way not start a rant ) :

1. Your disc had very deep scratches

2. You were using the wrong toothpaste or a gel based one

3. You might not have been buffing it with the correct material or in the right motion.

I'm confirming that it can work but it's more likely to work on a disc with lots of light scratches than a disc with a very deep scratch. It might take you an hour or 2 to buff it out and get it working but it can actually get your favourite game working again if done correctly

[Rayfist]

It probably depends how deep the scratches are I guess, but I really wouldn't want to put toothpaste on my discs.

Plus even with the game working there's probably still some data missing (music files and such,) though you'd have to play to find that out.

[Steo]

It probably depends how deep the scratches are I guess, but I really wouldn't want to put toothpaste on my discs.

Plus even with the game working there's probably still some data missing (music files and such,) though you'd have to play to find that out.

Yeah it really will depend on how deep they are which is the problem 99% of the time. In most cases they will be deep so in most cases like you said it probably isn't gonna work. The data will be still intact unless the scratch is very deep but is all the data readable is the question. Maybe a good way for me to test it is rip the disc with imgburn and see if it gets any errors.

Edit: also I apologise if that first part of the last post looked impolite. I didn't mean it like that and just got excited to see the title screen

[Rayfist]

Nah, don't apologize I think the first post I typed sounded a bit aggressive (even though that totally wasn't the case.)

[Steo]

Nah, don't apologize I think the first post I typed sounded a bit aggressive (even though that totally wasn't the case.)

Typing makes us look angry

I'll try rip that. I'm not even saying that the game is gonna work perfectly but the fact that it comes on now at all means it does do something but it takes a long time and if done wrong can make it worse.

Edit. Imgburn managed to 100% read the disc so no data is missing

Only problem is the circle in the centre has cracks in it but it isn't going to affect anything.

[Ambidextroid]

Plus even with the game working there's probably still some data missing (music files and such,) though you'd have to play to find that out.

While I've never tried this method it should work in theory without damaging any data as far as I can tell. That is unless your scratch is more of a gouge and penetrates the full millimetre or so of protective plastic covering the shiny bit.

I remember there used to be a big disc repair machine in my local GameStation which would actually grind away and smooth off the top layer of a disc and it would work fine afterwards.

[Steo]

While I've never tried this method it should work in theory workout damaging any data as far as I can tell. That is unless your scratch is more of a gouge and penetrates the full millimetre or so of protective plastic covering the shiny bit.

I remember there used to be a big disc repair machine in my local GameStation which would actually grind away and smooth off the top layer of a disc and it would work fine afterwards.

That's what I was trying to think of. It's the layer under the disc art that contains the data right? So as far as I know the worst you can do is scratch it slightly more or if you put the disc in an abrasive surface and go at it polishing and scratch the top of the disc, then it's bye bye data.

[Ambidextroid]

Pretty much, the majority of the thickness of a disc is just transparent plastic to protect the goods

[Steo]

Nice. I have a lot of ps2 games with scratches to experiment with them anyway but that colgate stuff leaves the disc nearly good as new looking with just some lighter scratches you can only see reflecting off the light. I know a decent machine would do a much better job but this is a lot cheaper

[R4Y_ANC3L]

I believed in the toothpaste method since I was young and I can remember I followed the steps to fix a game disc that I wanted to insert and play. From that point on, I wanted take as much extreme care of my discs as possible in order to not do that often.(It's toothpaste after all)
I'm really happy that it worked for you, I maybe can get into this method again if I come across any scratches that need dealing with.


This is the only method I will use, though.

There are other weird things on the internet that are thought to fix discs like using peanut butter, vaseline, insides of a banana peel and all that other crap. Seriously....