What do you do when you just can't get a disc to rip and return/exchange isn't an option?

[Stendal]

Hey gang, fairly new to the makemkv scene but I started ripping over the summer and my media collection has grown rapidly now that I understand the convenience of Plex. This is both a blessing and a curse as I've discovered the woes of "sometimes the disc is just made poorly" and I've finally hit one where my usual tricks won't work. I purchased the Star Trek: TNG blu-ray box set from a coworker, who had received it as a Christmas present and had been sitting on it for a year. There have been a few episodes give me problems but I was able to work around, but I've found 2 that just won't read no matter what, and I can't even make a backup of the disc. Still had the shrink wrap when I got it, but any receipt is long gone so I sincerely doubt CBS would send me a replacement disc. I tried finding a rip of the raw disc online but no luck, and a rip of the season in question was in a different aspect ratio so I don't really want to use it. I've still got a few things I'll try in the future (getting another drive, different methods of cleaning the disc, cleaning the drive itself, etc.) but what are your guys strategies when you end up in situations like these?

[Woodstock]

Still in the shrink wrap that long means cleaning them is in order, if you haven't already. I went through that set a year ago, and several disks needed cleaning, due to chemical contamination.

[Stendal]

That does give me a bit of hope, do you have a preferred cleaning solution? I see this for cheap but dunno if one of those machines would be better.

[wmcclain]

Here is what I do; I wrote it up for a FAQ I maintain:

What do I do if a disc will not play?

[Woodstock]

There are a lot of "favorite cleaners" out there. I used to use Pledge furniture polish for DVDs, because it was water-based, cleaned fingerprints well, and the wax component would fill small scratches.

Lately, though, I use what is essentially eyeglass lens cleaner, formulated to not leave a residue of its own. Pretty much any brand works.

Others use isopropyl alcohol, 70% or higher, and some use dish cleaner.

For any of them, though, make sure you use a clean, SOFT cloth, to avoid adding scratches.

[Krawk]

There are a lot of "favorite cleaners" out there. I used to use Pledge furniture polish for DVDs, because it was water-based, cleaned fingerprints well, and the wax component would fill small scratches.

Lately, though, I use what is essentially eyeglass lens cleaner, formulated to not leave a residue of its own. Pretty much any brand works.

Others use isopropyl alcohol, 70% or higher, and some use dish cleaner.

For any of them, though, make sure you use a clean, SOFT cloth, to avoid adding scratches.

Never thought of the Pledge trick, but for scratched discs that sounds like a great maybe.
I have used eye glass and flat screen cleaner interchangeably, where for eye glass cleaner, you can also get the individual disposable wipes (pack of 500 usually.)

[Woodstock]

Pledge came from when I owned airplanes. Plexiglass windshields are EXPENSIVE, and the typical car glass cleaner clouded them (alcohol attacks). Pledge didn't do that, and the waxed windshield beads up water like Rain-X.

But windshields don't have a closely-mounted laser read assembly that can collect excess wax... DVD drives are a lot more tolerant of "stuff" than BD drives. That's enough reason to stop using the furniture polish.

As for this collection of BDs, contamination is a big factor.

[Seeker47]

I don't know if this might be of any use (or is otherwise permitted in this particular forum), but a user review on VideoHelp said that for a (rare) disc processing failure using MakeMKV he did have success using BDtoAVCHD, which is free. It's usually good to have some "Plan B" to fall back on. In most cases I prefer to use MakeMKV for a specific job, but sometimes I use DVDFab instead -- especially if there is some stronger reason for preserving the Menus, which I think have never been supported by the MKV format. When you want to directly integrate a bunch of disc Extras as a convenience, for example. (MakeMKV has some error message stating that Fab rips may be substandard and errors-prone, but I've used Fab for many years and have not found much evidence of that.) I have hardly any experience with BDtoAVCHD, and so can't really comment on it, but want to have it available in the video toolkit.

[donut]

I just encountered a bluray today that wouldn't rip. I tried it in 2 different drives and got read errors in both. I tried to create a backup of the entire disk, and for some reason it worked. I was then able to complete the rip. I will watch it tonight to see if it was successful.

I cleaned the disk several times with 50/50 isopropyl alcohol and distilled water in between tries. It had really fine scratches in it.