How to fix a cracked disc?

Question

A friend of mine has a DVD with a crack "its a crack straight through it, about two centimeters on each side of the middle circle", he says.

I suggested toothpaste, will anything else work?

Solution 1

No it won't.

Any CD/DVD that is that structurally damaged is not suitable to put into your CD/DVD drive. Putting it risks the disk 'exploding' due to the rotation forces.

This in turn could result in your drive being rendered useless as well as your disk.

Solution 2

Toothpaste will supposedly help a scratched disc by buffing out some of the surface scratches.

I think your friend is out of luck in this case...

Comments

[Sasha Chedygov]

Yes, toothpaste does work for small scratches, but it won't do anything for a crack through the entire disc.

[Simon Hughes]

Right, knew that. I've heard it happen to friends. Although wikihow suggested tape to fix the foil. Perhaps tape will prevent cracking?

[Dan McGrath]

I highly doubt tape is going to help you once the DVD has a "crack straight through"

[Simon Hughes]

it's not all the way through. Sounds like extreme pressure was applied to the middle of the disc. It probably still is in one piece.

[vdbuilder]

is there a certain type of toothpaste to apply?

[Gnoupi]

@Moshe - also, tape will unbalance the CD/DVD, and this is bad too.