How do I Clean a CD or DVD?

I cleaned a disc once with my eye glasses cloth. It messed my disc up worse. Was that the wrong thing to use?

Here is the best way: re-buy all movies on Blu-Ray! Blu-Ray is more expensive, because it is a scratch-free disc, has better sound and better picture.

After storing CDs and DVDs for years in plastic bags, I noticed they have dry stains. I just wonder have I damaged the discs for storing them like that? Most are in their original box set cases.

I am lost. I "inherited" about 300 commercially made DVDs; movies, series, etc. They play worse than stuff from Redbox. We've tried all the ideas except having a store cleaning. I have four DVD players and the results vary somewhat on the playing time. They will play for an hour and then start pixelating. Any ideas?

I just got a new five CD box collection from Amazon and one cd has (I'm guessing) ink from the wet packaging. Any idea what will take it off without harming it?

If you're finding that your DVD player fails to play DVDs even after you've cleaned them with some of the tips here, it might just be your DVD player.

I had the same problem where my DVDs would not play. Then, I got a new DVD player and all of my DVDs play on it just fine. These are the same slightly scratched DVDs that didn't play in the previous DVD player!

So definitely clean your DVDs, but just keep in mind that it's not always the DVDs that are the problem.

I don't know much about cleaning CDs but my neighbor used to clean his with a tissue and dish washing liquid. It seemed to work well but I've been afraid to try it myself. If I have to clean a CD, I try to do it with just a dry soft tissue.

@Ana1234 - People still use DVDs all the time though. Streaming large amounts of information is inconvenient and expensive, plus it's better to have your information stored physically, I find, as well as in virtual memory. I've had more external hard drives lose my information than CDs or DVDs.

With that said, if your DVD or CD is really scratched you might want to consider bringing it into a DVD store to see if they have a professional cleaning machine. It can sometimes do what you can't at home and it's the best way to clean a CD.

People have been dealing with dust in their machines for years. One of my most vivid memories as a child was my father getting angry at me for trying to play a video he had told me not to play. I thought it was a forbidden movie and I was being cheeky, but it was actually a really dusty video that ended up damaging the VCR. It took ages for the dust to work itself out.

I guess now that we're moving into an age where most things are played off memory or streamed over the internet, dust is no longer such a concern! It's still useful to know how to clean a cd or player though.

Does using compressed air to remove dust ruin a DVD?

Does using toothpaste on a disc really work?

I followed this article because a dvd was freezing in one spot all the time. After cleaning as outlined with rubbing alcohol, dvd player no longer recognized dvd. Be warned.

Can you clean a DVD with rubbing alcohol? I've been told you shouldn't.

can i use bleach?

sometimes I use a very fine sandpaper!

Thank you! i had fabric paint on my sims cd and been trying to find solutions for over two weeks and the alcohol actually worked perfectly!

the shiny bottom dude. Not that hard to figure out.

Thank you. CDs from library, tried mild dish soap, removed food and grease but one CD had some kind of marker on tracks. Was afraid to try alcohol until I read your article, it worked without damage.

does it matter if it is a cd or a dvd?

Just cleaned it with soap. i'll let it dry and try playing after some time.

The rubbing alcohol worked perfectly. Thanks for the advice!

Do I clean the shiny 'bottom' or the logo'd 'top' of the DVD ?

does this procedure change if the discs went through a flood?