Game Disc Scratched

[stephenxiii]

hey guys,

my lil brother has has 'The Sims Complete Collection'
that cost about £50.
He also has learning diffaculties and put the disc in
the wrong way and has scratche the hell out of it.

Is there anyway i can Rip the files of the disc?
as when i try to drag it to the desktop
it stops half way and says some files cant be copyed
due to an error with the disc.

 

[xlii]

Steve, you could try a couple more dvd readers. Some are better than others at error correction. If the disk is so damaged that some of the data just isn't readable anymore then I would contact the company and tell them what you just told us. You have the damaged disk. They might let you exchange it for a new undamaged disk. It's worth a try.

 

[stephenxiii]

Steve, you could try a couple more dvd readers.

i have an external drive, a think its for windows, ill try anyway.
thanks for your help anyway.

 

[BATTLE BORN]

try to find a used game store in your area. They usually have awesome disk buffers that can fix just about anything for a few bucks.

 

[sushi]

I would:

• Try another CD drive.
• Try making a disk image (maybe it will work when copying files won't).
• Contact the publisher and get a replacement CD.
• Find a place that sells the CD by itself such as a pawn shop, flee market, etc. Since you have the original package, all you need is the CD.
• Try buffing out the CD. Sometimes this will allow it to be read.

Once you acquire a good copy, I would suggest making a back up copy. Then use the back up copy.

 

[Sambo110]

Unlucky. When we first got the iMac we were putting discs in the wrong way (I was putting them in the same way the discs for the Wii and PS3 went in), and nothing happened. The only thing I can recommend is cleaning the disc with one of those disc cleaning tools you can buy, or something like that. Wish you luck.

 

[Consultant]

perhaps google: repair cd scratch

 

[chrono1081]

Ouch, its on the label too. Which most people dont realize is the WORST place to get a scratch :/

 

[Makosuke]

Ouch, its on the label too. Which most people dont realize is the WORST place to get a scratch :/

Yeah, that's the thing here--if the scratches are on the label side and that's actually what is causing the read errors (as opposed to some copy protection scheme, which can result in the same error), then no amount of buffing or switching drives is likely to help. (Reason: If the scratches are through the label then they've actually cut through the reflective layer.)

Hold the disc up to a bright light and look at the shiny side; if you can see little pinprick/lines of bright light corresponding to the scratches, then the disc is just plain toast. If the shiny layer is intact, the scratches will be visible as brighter spots, but still considerably dimmer than the light itself.

 

[stephenxiii]

try to find a used game store in your area. They usually have awesome disk buffers that can fix just about anything for a few bucks.

That was the 1st thing i done, but it was a waste of time tbh.

I would:

• Try making a disk image (maybe it will work when copying files won't).

• 
  
  without sounding like a total noobie, how exactly do i do that.
  is it in the disk utility and creat disk image
  
  

  Ouch, its on the label too.

  
  Its on both the front and back, the back is totaly destroyed.
  
  Thanks for all the reply

 

[sushi]

without sounding like a total noobie, how exactly do i do that.
is it in the disk utility and create disk image

No worries. Yes it is. Open up DU and then create a "DVD/CD master" from the CD.

After creating the image, then you can burn a new CD from the image. Note, with some games you can just mount the image and play from there, without a physical CD, which is really cool.

If this doesn't work, you might ask a PC using friend to see if their PC can make a copy of your CD using Nero for example.

Sometimes using a different optical drive can make a big difference in reading the CD. Then again, it looks like your CD is pretty messed up so you may need to punt and just contact the company and get a replacement CD.

 

[Sambo110]

Maybe if you have the download limit to do it, you could download it off the internet? I know it's illegal, but IMO you have right to do it after this.

 

[Sun Baked]

I thought scratches on the label side destroy data, while scratches on the optical side simply keep it from being read (and the buffing machines can remove these).

 

[sushi]

I thought scratches on the label side destroy data, while scratches on the optical side simply keep it from being read (and the buffing machines can remove these).

The actual data on a CD is on the back side of the label side.

On the label side, a small scratch can ruin the CD. But minor scratches or finger prints don't matter.

On the non-label side, a small scratch, fingerprint or smudge can cause the data to not be able to be read. Anything that causes the laser beam to be refracted to the point where the laser cannot read the data. The CD can be cleaned removing fingerprints and smudges. The small scratch can be buffed out.

Deep scratches on the other hand are harder to deal with. Depending on the type of scratch, it's orientation (with the grain or against the grain), etc. can affect recoverability. The easiest ones to fix are the ones that are perpendicular the the center (like a radius line). The hardest ones are the ones parallel to the center (like a concentric circle line).