Holes and scratches in CDs

Two separate questions follow.

Can anyone recommend a CD polishing/repair kit that actually works? I have recently tried to restore a lightly scratched CD (1st CD of Klemperer's recording of Matthew Passion) to no avail using a commercial CD polishing kit. Today, I noticed my Haitink Mahler 5 has a light scratch which causes a pop in the 2nd mvt. I would hate to lose either disc.

On a related note, I have a disc of Monteverdi madrigals that has a hole in it (drilled into the edge by a thoughtless clerk when the CD was converted to cutout). It plays fine, I assume, because the hole doesn't cover any of the CD's data. I have another CD, OTOH, (Handley's Robert Simpson's 10th) with a pin-sized hole right in the middle of the data area. God knows how the hole got there. This CD also plays fine. And yet another CD (the 2nd disc of the Gardiner recording of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea) which skips badly and comes to a complete stop right in the middle of an exquisite passage, despite having no visible defect at all.

Why would the Poppea disc with no visible defect behave this way when the first two discs with *holes* play fine?

tia, John

Finally! Someone speaks up for Haitink!

You need to disconnect your V-chip. Obviously it encountered an obscene

[snip]

: And yet another CD (the 2nd disc of the Gardiner : recording of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea) which skips badly : and comes to a complete stop right in the middle of an exquisite : passage, despite having no visible defect at all.

: Why would the Poppea disc with no visible defect behave this way when : the first two discs with *holes* play fine?

I've heard of CD players which as they get older become finicky about playing certain CD's. Can't say why this happens, though. Try playing the 'Poppea' disc on another CD player to see if it does this on other machines.

Haitink's Mahler 5 is a masterpiece. It's true, not a lot of people like this recording. Don't know why, but I'm not terribly surprised

I've never tried it, but I've heard from a guy who was a hardware techie that toothpaste and a rag is perfect for this because it's a mild abrasive, like a fine sandpaper. It's a low-cost alternative!

I can certainly vouch for this - a gentle circular motion over a scratch does wonders - a sharp scratch can cause wild redirection of the laser beam, which is cured by taking off the edges. It's as good as any commercial product because it works exactly the same way. However, this only works with damage to the playing side. Bear in mind that the data is held very close to the label side - a thick scratch on this side can be pretty fatal, causing damage to the data surface itself, rather than the 'window' through which the laser 'looks'.

As for holes in the disc itself: well, a cut-out from the outside shouldn't pose too many problems as the disc is read from the centre outwards - unless it's a particularly long disc or big hole (which might also affect the spin, making the disc wobble). As for holes in the middle, well you might be lucky! The data is spread cleverly around the disc rather than being put in a continuous line so that problems like this can be often rectified by pretty efficient guesswork and interpolation.

Hope this helps...