One of my xbox live games is scratched, and not registering properly, so this is a last ditch effort. Any feedback would be appreciated especially first person experience. On the other hand, I heard it could be risky in messing up your console so, I'm at a crossroads of what to do...

If you can, just buy a new disc.

I've not tried the toothpaste method, but I'm also EXTREMELY against putting anything but cds in my system.

Would you rather pay 50 for a new game... or 300 for a new system? (I don't know what they are now, but the idea remains)

No I haven't - I've actually heard of another method which is equally ridiculous: peanut butter! lol

I'll just use a wet tissue to clean discs, if it's scratched you could try a video game store that resurfaces the discs.

Did a quick google search and came across this. I won't recommend that you do it if you're worried about messing up your console. Plus you have to worry about potentially making new scratches if you aren't careful (games are written to DVDs, which are more susceptible to scratches than CDs).

Whoever came up with the whole toothpaste can fix disc scratches idea had absolutely nothing supporting his/her logic. According to this idea, toothpaste can somehow turn itself into polycarbonate plastic simply by touching it and also correctly mimic the binary coding in the ridges within the disc. Yeah...... toothpaste can do that. The only way you can actually fix a scratch is to resurface with the buffing device. All the scratch removing solutions and goo does is effectively clean out the scratches, increasing the chance of the scratch not making the disc unreadable. Just take it to a store that has a buffering machine in the back and have them do it.

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm deciding against the idea, as it doesn't seem much better than a temporary band-aid solution, with many risks to go along with it. The disc is my NBA 2K12; which is a shame considering how much I've played online - but at least 2K13 will hit the shelves in a couple of months...

Stockton90 : Got any stores that have a buffering machine? Your best luck would be game stores, places like CD Tradepost, or movie rental places. Movie rental places are starting to have them so they can fix their rental discs. Anyway, usually places charge $1 to buff out a scratch. It really is the most effective method. 

rcarter2 : Within the past couple of months, a movie rental store has opened up in town here. I'll take a drive down there, and see if they're able to help... Also, if the price will be in that range, that is very reasonable. Thanks again.

soxfan849 :

I glanced through that article out of sheer curiosity. It was actually pretty interesting (assuming it's all true).


rcarter2 :

Did you read the article that soxfan posted?


Stockton90 :

One of my friends is a decent computer geek. Built his own computer, programming major, plays with hardware to see what happens, etc. Would you like me to check with him?

BNuge : Yea sure. It wouldn't hurt to get another opinion

BNuge : I was already aware of the explanation that the article presented. It has some major flaws though. In essence, the very old style of toothpaste would work because it resurfaces the disc as a buffing machine does by, for a lack of better words right now, sandpapers it down. But no matter what any toothpaste company will tell you, modern toothpastes are not made like they were used to. Even the heavily gritty toothpaste (like arm and hammer baking soda paste) have too many other components in it that would be harmful. Toothpaste is meant to fill little nooks and crannies to effectively clean. Unless you are willing to take a bristly brush to scrape out the unseen paste layer insite the scratch, you are going to have a buffed scratch with traces of dry toothpaste inside of it. Observing scratches treated with different methods was one of my chemistry experiments, and that is what I found. I also found that due to the inconsistency of the paste, it was difficult to control what areas got the best focus for buffing. I might have been a little far saying there was nothing supporting the idea, but there is little thought as to the other components of modern toothpaste.

I use this stuff called "scratch remover" you can get it for about ten dollars at Walmart or target. I used it on my Modern Warfare 2 disk and it worked well. Its better than toothpaste.

rcater2 proves exactly what I was thinking. Especially with the science project.