www.makemkv.com

Hi dcoke22 That would be great but for one big snag: most of us only own one copy of a disk. Staying legal, I would need to buy another copy - if indeed it is still available. And this would be impossible if it's a limited run DVD of, say, my child's school theatrical performance. In my case I'm try...

Fully concur with mas1701's suggestion. If the o/s says "no", just thank it nicely and move to the next sector.
For minor scratches the resulting blip in the video would hardly be noticed, just like when played on a commercial player.