CD Repair Kits: Do they really work?

[Ra]

I was just wondering if kits sold to repair CD's actually work, before I go out and buy one. I have several computer CD's, and some used disks I bought for the PS2 that are very scratched, and want to know if it does work, or if it fucks things up worse than before.

[Destructionator XV]

Sometimes they work, sometimes they make things worse. I find they have more success with normal music and data CDs with the standard bottom than with CD-Rs or Playstation CDs, but sometimes they go either way.

[Ra]

So, is there any other way of getting disks repaired, or am I basically out of luck here?

[Destructionator XV]

As far as I know, the CD repair kits are your best bet. Sometimes though what I try first is to make a copy of the disk in a computer; sometimes when reading to make a copy they can have better error recovery, but that is rare.

So yeah, I'd have to say the repair kit is probably the best thing to try, though success is far from guaranteed.

[Ra]

Thanks, Adam. Last question, though, is it even possible to copy game CD files (and for that matter, making backup disks)? I've honestly never tried.

I probably am going to try the kit, however, despite the risks. Because one computer CD, my Homeworld2 game, is so horribly scratched it cannot even be copied. I get error messages that say the drive can't read the data.

[Destructionator XV]

Thanks, Adam. Last question, though, is it even possible to copy game CD files (and for that matter, making backup disks)? I've honestly never tried.

Depends on the game, but all the games I own (Worms 2, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, not quite the newest games), it works pretty well. Worms 2 has music stored on the disk like a regular music CD, so copying the files doesn't get that, but no big deal.

Playstation games also keep the files on the CD, usually as ~10 huge files in a couple folders. But they are also multi session, like Worms 2, so coping the files only gets a portion of it.

So depends on the game, but you often can pull the files off. And if you do a full cd copy like many tools offer, you get it all. After that, if you want to run the game, things change a little; you usually need specialized tools to do it, but they can be found on the 'net. The problem then comes with copy protection not letting you do it, a more common problem on newer games, but not an end all, and some of the tools work around that (dubius legality there though).


EDIT: Also, individual files that the game uses are sometimes packed in one big file on the disk. Like Starcraft stores it all in install.exe, a 500 MB monstrosity on the CD, but it is possible to extract individual images and sounds, etc from that too.

[Ra]

I'll definitely look into it. Again, thanks for the help, Adam.