I have read the posts about CD-R and the issues regarding their conservation and damages to be avoided. But i have no found a reliable explanation of the repairing process of any optical device. I know that there are some kind of polishing machines or even varnishes. I wanted to know the best way of restoration, and the materials needed if someone knows something. I'm new here so I don't know if this is a dumb question, sorry if it is, and thanks anyway!
You can polish out scratches using a variety of different products, like Novus or Brasso. The major problem is the foil delaminating though (aka CD rot) which AFAIK you can't really do anything about.
The likely reason you haven't been able to find much on the topic is because it doesn't exist. Unfortunately your only real option is to store the discs properly etc, and not damage them in the first place. Anything that can be done to help the discs read properly, is either damaging the disc to a degree (i.e. abrasives), or really only a stop gap solution. Assuming you are able to legally maintain backups in your region, your best bet would probably be to simply not use the original disc at all if it's of major concern.
OK, thanks for the answers. I knew that they were some products to help the discs to be re-readable, but nothing to make them last longer. That's a problem for collecting games with this kind of software (I suffer a lot each time i see a scratch on my little gamecube discs lol)
This is why some consoles (like PS2, Xbox, etc.) have the option to read dumped games from the hard drive and some consoles that don't need CD drive emulators. I know one is in development for the Dreamcast and a few already exist for other consoles. Optical media is a bad thing for long term storage...
