Last week I pulled my now most notorious “McGiver Moment” at work. I was called to a ticket in which the department needed software installed from a cd. When I arrived, they quietly handed me the cd… a little strange. I flipped it over and realized why. The cd was absolutely covered in scratches and some kind of adhesive material.
“Do you realize this cd is too scratched to use?” I asked. “Ummm well, ummm yes, someone was here last week and tried it.” “Well why did you call the help desk again about it?” “Uhhhh, we wanted to try with another tech.”
Since I had forgotten my magic wand that day, I decided to try something else. “Does anyone have any toothpaste?” They looked at me strangely, but started to search. Then I remembered – I had a sample of crest in my own purse. In a very McGiver fashion, I whipped it out and started to buff the underside of the cd.
If your cd’s are scratched, try this method to clean them. Place some toothpaste on the bottom of the cd. Gently buff in a circular motion around the cd. Basically you are following the lines around the entire disk. Now clean with fresh water and dry thoroughly. If you don’t have toothpaste, peanut butter works too, but you need to use soap to remove all of the peanut residue when you are done.
Sure enough, the toothpaste buffed the scratches out just enough for me to use the disk for an install. The customer was impressed, and I felt like Supertech, flying in to the rescue!
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31 March 2009, 1:22 pm
Peanut butter can take off the residue from store price tags too.
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31 March 2009, 1:23 pm
I call my husband mcgiver because he can fix anything WITH anything.. maybe I will have to try this and he can call me Mrs McGiver!
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31 March 2009, 4:07 pm
Maybe that would salvage some of my kids useless dvd’s!
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16 May 2009, 6:40 am
this is sure helpful.. i’ll try it on my scratch cd later on..
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08 July 2009, 11:21 am
I agree with you. Tried and tested, toothpaste and peanut butter work!
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