Scratches on Discs. OH NO. You have a game you treated like China, it gets scratched and now you have to buy a new copy. But on Gamecube games for some reason (and possibly because of their size) they sometimes read the scratches and then work fine. I only know this because I have a copy of Melee that has a scratch on four characters (sorted from more likely to load to near-impossible to load): Samus, Ganon, Mr.G&M, and sadly, Yoshi loads the worst. He NEVER loads. This made clearing events like Puffballs unite, The Yoshi Herd, and Yoshi's egg impossible! And then, one day on classic, on the first match which was DR.Mario VS Yoshi, he [i][u]loaded[/u][/i]. I thought this was a miracle! And before that classic attempt, Samus loaded for the first time in YEARS! When this happened, I thought to myself, "How does the game load this stuff?" and I realized it. Load. The word that stood out in that thought was load. I remembered when I played my copy of Brawl, SMG2, Super Mario Wii (which is BEYOND repair), and they wouldn't [i]load[/i]. I bought a new copy of Brawl. My old wii's lens were dirty, so I had to put in the scratched version of Brawl (which worked fine, both game & system were from the same year) before putting in the new one to get it to [i]load[/i]. That's when I realized it: "I can RELOAD the game's data... WITHOUT resetting, CLEANING, and ever having to worry about another scratched disc! [i]In order to reload a game's data and basically have it work fine, you have to do what you would usually do to load a game.[/i] If it's already in the system, you would [b]open the cover, see the game in there, and close the lid[/b]. EXACTLY how to reload a game, open the cover, close the lid, and the screen should say "reading the game disc..." and although it may take a few tries... IT. [b]WILL[/b]. [b][u]WORK[/u][/b]. If that was too difficult to understand, i'll put it like this: It's like switching out disc 1 for disc 2 on a game such as Resident Evil, but you don't actually switch out the game. Just press OPEN, and close the lid. Though make sure you DO clean it once in a while, because if you do, the game will have a much better time working. Samus NEVER freezes the game anymore! Also, i'm pretty sure it would also work on the Wii in the way that I got my copy of Brawl to work: Take out the disc, put it back in. Definitely more tedious than the Gamecube though.

I've actually had pretty good luck with a vehicle headlight restoration kit, and this was tested on some absolute worst case scenario discs. I mean, thrown out of a car window and into a hillside bad. Its tedious, and it takes some elbow grease and time, but if you do it right, and don't sand it so far that you start grinding out the inner layer of the disc where the data is stored, this should buy you enough time to make a data backup of the disc contents. With what you are doing, you are just catching the initial pulse from the laser, this is allowing it to read through the scratch for a short time, thus allowing the game to load. You can expect that to cause the diode to burn out rather quickly.

[quote="Nite Shadow"]I've actually had pretty good luck with a vehicle headlight restoration kit, and this was tested on some absolute worst case scenario discs. I mean, thrown out of a car window and into a hillside bad. Its tedious, and it takes some elbow grease and time, but if you do it right, and don't sand it so far that you start grinding out the inner layer of the disc where the data is stored, this should buy you enough time to make a data backup of the disc contents. With what you are doing, you are just catching the initial pulse from the laser, this is allowing it to read through the scratch for a short time, thus allowing the game to load. You can expect that to cause the diode to burn out rather quickly.[/quote] Hmm... never heard that before. Though I think I may know what you mean. A few days ago, one of the scratched characters (Ganondorf) kept crashing the game with the error message telling you to restart the system, and when my brother was playing Adventure mode as Yoshi (the most scratched character) the game gave him the same error after a few stages. And after those problems, the characters still work. Other than that, I don't think your method would work for my problem. For one, i'm talking about a GCN game, and with the size of the disc, I don't think I can make a backup. Second, the 'initial pulse' is most likely what's not happening. In rare cases, the game can load Yoshi and MR.G&M just fine. Finally, ever since I started using this trick, the game has actually been loading [i]better[/i] than before. Samus barely ever freezes the game (same with Ganon) so the only two I need to keep reloading are Yoshi and G&M. Also, for some really cool reason, putting my brother's yoshi plush keychain (which he just hangs in his room) on the console helps Yoshi load. I understand what you mean, but I don't think I would ever need to back up a Wii or GCN game, except for one that may be beyond playability... Darn my older brothers, actually thinking putting [i]toothpaste[/i] on the disc for New Super Mario Bros Wii would work. :( PS: By rather quickly, do you mean a month quick, or a year quick? I've been doing this for the past two months and was able to unlock all the characters / stages (all of which work fine).

[quote="Weegeesquare"][quote="Nite Shadow"]I've actually had pretty good luck with a vehicle headlight restoration kit, and this was tested on some absolute worst case scenario discs. I mean, thrown out of a car window and into a hillside bad. Its tedious, and it takes some elbow grease and time, but if you do it right, and don't sand it so far that you start grinding out the inner layer of the disc where the data is stored, this should buy you enough time to make a data backup of the disc contents. With what you are doing, you are just catching the initial pulse from the laser, this is allowing it to read through the scratch for a short time, thus allowing the game to load. You can expect that to cause the diode to burn out rather quickly.[/quote] Hmm... never heard that before. Though I think I may know what you mean. A few days ago, one of the scratched characters (Ganondorf) kept crashing the game with the error message telling you to restart the system, and when my brother was playing Adventure mode as Yoshi (the most scratched character) the game gave him the same error after a few stages. And after those problems, the characters still work. Other than that, I don't think your method would work for my problem. For one, i'm talking about a GCN game, and with the size of the disc, I don't think I can make a backup. Second, the 'initial pulse' is most likely what's not happening. In rare cases, the game can load Yoshi and MR.G&M just fine. Finally, ever since I started using this trick, the game has actually been loading [i]better[/i] than before. Samus barely ever freezes the game (same with Ganon) so the only two I need to keep reloading are Yoshi and G&M. Also, for some really cool reason, putting my brother's yoshi plush keychain (which he just hangs in his room) on the console helps Yoshi load. I understand what you mean, but I don't think I would ever need to back up a Wii or GCN game, except for one that may be beyond playability... Darn my older brothers, actually thinking putting [i]toothpaste[/i] on the disc for New Super Mario Bros Wii would work. :( PS: By rather quickly, do you mean a month quick, or a year quick? I've been doing this for the past two months and was able to unlock all the characters / stages (all of which work fine).[/quote] Actually, toothpaste does work, at least for minor scratches. For major stuff however, it's nothing more than a wasted effort. I hear brasso is the best though, but I've never been able to get my hands on it to try it.

Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and if used properly, you can use it to buff out a small scratch. The same goes for furniture polish. I once used the latter to recover a few formerly-inaccessible tracks from a dodgy CD. However, these tricks are unlikely to fix a scratch that's long or deep.

[quote="VinnyVideo"]Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and if used properly, you can use it to buff out a small scratch. The same goes for furniture polish. I once used the latter to recover a few formerly-inaccessible tracks from a dodgy CD. However, these tricks are unlikely to fix a scratch that's long or deep.[/quote] That's where the vehicle headlight restore kit comes in, it's been designed to bring hard plastic headlights to an optical clear finish. This is done using 4 grits of sandpaper, and applying a finishing compound. Now, this is an extreme measure to use on optical media (Such as a DVD disc) but if you are desperate to get something to work, this is sure to do the trick, IF you do it right.

[quote="Nite Shadow"][quote="VinnyVideo"]Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and if used properly, you can use it to buff out a small scratch. The same goes for furniture polish. I once used the latter to recover a few formerly-inaccessible tracks from a dodgy CD. However, these tricks are unlikely to fix a scratch that's long or deep.[/quote] That's where the vehicle headlight restore kit comes in, it's been designed to bring hard plastic headlights to an optical clear finish. This is done using 4 grits of sandpaper, and applying a finishing compound. Now, this is an extreme measure to use on optical media (Such as a DVD disc) but if you are desperate to get something to work, this is sure to do the trick, IF you do it right.[/quote] And if I screw up... Well, there still is Super Smash 3DS.

[quote="Weegeesquare"] And if I screw up... Well, there still is Super Smash 3DS.[/quote] I'm not going to lie, if you fear screwing up, you should look for another means of fixing your disc. If you know of a place that rents DVDs, those usually have a device for managing scratches. You could ask.

Or, you know, buy the game again. Sometimes, all this repair mumbo jumbo is actually more expensive than just buying the game again.

[quote="Darky"]Or, you know, buy the game again. Sometimes, all this repair mumbo jumbo is actually more expensive than just buying the game again.[/quote] Not entirely, Often these things are just things that are on hand; toothpaste being the most common. In addition to this, with any method you choose, you should be able to manage several discs.