News Halo 3 Limited Edition discs scratched

I didn't know that. I just thought that DVD and CD were read in the same manner as Vinyl Records (Remember those...???) from the outside in. Ah well, you live and learn...

About these disk repair devices, how good are they in reality and can they damage disks? What about the Brasso option mentioned above? Is that safe?

Ta.

 

as for how data on cd / dvd are written... its always inside to outside...

as for the repair stuff... i'd say stay away from it and return it to the shop as a broken product to get a new one.

 

Right, I don't get the holders. I just got my copy (well almost 2 hours ago...) but the two discs are on seperate spindles on seperate sides of the box. Both spindles appear to be the same. BUT the one on the disc side appears to be a tiny fraction of a millimetre smaller which is why it doesn't hold it right. This is something which in the day and age should not happen and I cannot understand why it did.

 

Yeah, it would be a better idea to just return the game for a new one.

What the brasso/disk cleaners do is just remove the top layer of plastic. On a CD you have the shiny data bit, then quite a thick layer of plastic (relatively speaking) that protects the data. 95% of scratches, even deep looking ones, are just scratching of the plastic layer, the data is still perfectly intact underneath that, the reason it doesn't read is the laser can't penetrate to the data it wants to get to, most minor scratches won't cause any problems loading, big ones can however. Brasso is just like a very fine grit sandpaper in liquid form, so using it just takes the very top layer of plastic coating off where the scratch is, and because it's fine grit it leaves you with a nice surface finish. I haven't done it myself, but I first heard the method here a while ago. If you do want to try it out, I suggest scratching a burnt CD then testing to see if it works ok if no-one else vouches for the technique.

EDIT: Damn you Doug I want my copy!

 

My disc has minor scratches. Weirdly though, my old GoW that was unscratched got "Disc scratched" errors (stupid I know) but the new one has a lot and hasn't had one yet. I am going to see if I do get any errors (I have till the end of the year) before returning it (I'll say it was a chrimbo pressie)

 

I used to get scratched disk errors with GoW as well, I think it was just a bug with the earlier version of the game, like how Forza 2 sometimes loses it's place when you pause the game so it decides the disk is unreadable.