dots on a disk.. anyone know how to tell if a disk is resurfaced?

so ive been getting a lot of ps1 rpgs lately on ebay. After getting a copy of lunar 2 that looked like a bad car wax job i have started asking people before bidding if their disks are resurfaced. I know that there are professional machines out there that supposedly do a good job tut i just dont like it, its grinding a layer off the disk. Anyway, i recently got a disk that looked alright. Just a few scratches but there is a weird thing ive never seen before. there are a series of little dots along the outer edge that go around the entire disk in a circle. It almost looks like someone put a lot of tiny fingerprints right next to eachother ina full circle.

its kinda hard to explain and even hardter to take a picture of. i took a few pics of it

http://home.comcast.net/~kenshindono...resurface1.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~kenshindono...resurface2.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~kenshindono...resurface3.JPG

they're evenly spaced like that and in a complete ring

what the hell are these? i havent seen them before. I looked at several of my personal disks and they dont have those. Neither do any of the other used games ive bought. I need to test the game for an hour or 2. I just popped it in briefly and it seems to work ok but seemed to lag a bit durring battles when some moves were taken (its tactics ogre btw so i dunno if its just suposed to do that or if it was a fluke)

So does anyone know what the heck those dots are? is it an effect of resurfacing? How can you tell if a disk IS resurfaced? Obviously when its poorly done it looks swirly and cruddy. But the professional machines suposedly make it harder to tell, i hear they leave kinda a ring on the outer edge or something, but ive never heard about these dots

btw its not dirt, i did my standard light hand soap and water rinse, followed by an alochol wipe with a microfiber cloth and they are still there

I know of no resurfacing machine that would do that, nor any process that COULD do that. The way the grinder spins doesn't work that way.

I'm thinking... factory oddity or bootleg disc of decent imitation. Does it boot properly on your system?

i thought maybe they were marks from where the disk was held or the drinders were misaligned?

I only played it for like 15 minutes because some friends droped by, but it did boot properly.. i dont think its a bootleg, the case is certainly real, and the label looks real as well. Theyre very odd looking. You dont see them normaly unless you look at it in direct light at the right angle.. theyre kinda rainbow looking actually

any ideas?

also if its not a resurfacing artifact.. what CAN you look for to tell if its been resurfaced

Are they on the surface or in the reflective layer? (sometimes there can be odd flays in the reflective layer)

im not sure if theyre on the surface or the reflective layer. how would i determine that?

btw like i said the game seemed to stutter a tiny bit durring certain turns for the brief period i played. It sounded like it was loading a lot, and it paused for a second or so. Im not sure if thats a problem or just part of the game, at the time i had just done a quick alcohol wipe and not a thorough cleaning. has anyone played it? Just a reminder its tactics ogre.

I'll have to do a more thorough testing later but im gonna be out and about a lot this weekend.

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Originally Posted by kenshin-dono

i thought maybe they were marks from where the disk was held or the drinders were misaligned?

I only played it for like 15 minutes because some friends droped by, but it did boot properly.. i dont think its a bootleg, the case is certainly real, and the label looks real as well. Theyre very odd looking. You dont see them normaly unless you look at it in direct light at the right angle.. theyre kinda rainbow looking actually

any ideas?

also if its not a resurfacing artifact.. what CAN you look for to tell if its been resurfaced

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The disc is held in place through the center hole, nothing touches the surface besides the grinder pad. Artifacts would be a repeating circular pattern around the entire disc and possible abrasive residue along the outer or inner edges

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Originally Posted by kenshin-dono

im not sure if theyre on the surface or the reflective layer. how would i determine that?

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Hold it in front of a bright light with the top surface facing the light and the read surface facing you. If it's in the reflective layer, the light should highlight those defects. (assuming they're porous spots in the reflective surface)

This is a normal dark surfaced PS1 disc?

I held it with the label facing the top of my lamp and the read side facing me and didn't see anything. I even went outside and held it up to the sun and didn't see anything but my reflection on the read side. So whats that mean exactly, that its some defect on the surface? Someone on another forum suggested it may be heat damage from leaving it in a hot car or maybe smoke damage or something.. but i dont think it would be in perfect proportions like that

It is worth stressing that under casual light you dont even see them. Only when you hold it up to direct light and turn it at certain angles do they become visible. And actually its not just one ring like that as i first though. Theres actually TWO sets . right underneath each one you see there is another little identical fingerprint looking circle. So theres 2 perfectly aligned sets of these going in a ring around the disk. ... wtf?


You guys really dont think its a resurface job? Thats the first thing that poped into my head but like i sid ive never seen one like that and am honestly not sure what to look for in the new machines. Diosoth says none of the newer ones do that. The guy also told me it wasn't resurfaced, and he has high feedback rating

Im not sure what the heck to think, or if i should maybe return it. Im just worried its going to have problems down the line since ive never seen this before. The case and manual are in great shape and other than these rings the disk itself looks pretty good with just a few light scratches. If its just a weird cosmetic thing i dont wanna go with the hassle of a return because its in great condition otherwise. I'll have to test it thoroughly but im gonna be out and about most of the weekend. Like i said it seemed to load hard and pause for a second durring character turns for the brief moment i played it. I'll have to see if it still does that nowt hat ive cleaned it thoroughly. Has anyone played tactis ogre? Do they know if theres slight load times for character moves?

That's definitely a case of disc rot, and it occurs when bits of the reflective layer become oxidized and peel off. It's irreversible, unfortunately. Read up on it here: http://www.rfgeneration.com/news/Dis...uyers-1337.php

i dont think its disk rot. like i said i did the test kool kitty sugested and i cant see the things when i shine a light through the label side. (i also just went out in the sun and tried it) I also dont see any white dots or anything else shining through so there doesn't seem to be any rot or anything over on the label side

the guy got back to me and said he doesn't know what they are and that he never saw them. He also claims he bought the game brand new and recently layed it on my his ps3

there is some sticker residue over the UPC on the back though so im not really sure why that would be there if it really was new like he claimed when he bought it

im still guessing some resurface job though it doesn't make much sense. i cant think what else these thinsg could be. anyone?

if i test it and it seems like it works fine should i just say screw it and keep it? It would be kinda a hassle to send it back and be out the shipping, then look for another copy. I think i should probably play it a good 3 or 4 hours to be sure

can you make a better pic? they're really blurred, i can't see how exactly the damage looks

i had a circle on my soul calibur for dc, that's happened on my first dc.
my little brother was running in the room and hit the controller cord while i was playing and catapulted the console to the ground, the disc bounced inside the drive and the spinning motor drawed a circle on the surface, but these on your discs seems different

Doesn't look like disc rot or resurfacing to me either.

Incidentally, that disc rot page is a tad alarmist. Most holes are caused by either not treating the discs well and accidentally damaging them (especially true on CDs where most of the top surface is not covered by a label), or the holes were there from manufacture and not noticed until they were actually looked for. Hence the "OMG my collection has teh rot" reaction from people like whoever wrote that article. Rot can happen (especially in certain discs) but there's no point blowing it out of all proportion.

OK, so it's probably just some surface abrasion. Who knows what caused it or when, but if it works fine, I wouldn't worry. ;) Curious nonetheless.


As for laser rot, I don't think it has anything to do with the reflective layer physically peeling off in most cases: but improper or degrading of the plastic/lacquer sandwich iirc (and/or air bubbles). The oxidation of the metallic layer alone would render it non-functional due to its loss of reflective properties.
Now, damaging the top, very thin lacquer/label surface can irreparably damage a CD or GD-ROM for sure and it is very thin, unlike the bottom surface. (DVDs use a dual polycarbonate plastic sandwich which eliminates the issue and allows for double sided discs) Scratches on the bottom can often be polished way, but deep scratches through the top/label pennetrating the thin layer to the reflective surface aren't reparable. (unless the reflective layer is intact, in which case some lacquer -maybe clear nail polish- may be applied to re-seal it)


Finally, the reflective layer can have flaws from the factory, often inconsequential to operation (high porosity, tons of tiny pin holes visible through bright light), but sometimes rendering it unreadable. (also dependent on the CD drive used -as with scratch damage)

I have some discs with strange patterns like that. My theory is that it's from a machine at the factory that grabs the disc with suction cups or something.

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Originally Posted by Duane Dibbley

I have some discs with strange patterns like that. My theory is that it's from a machine at the factory that grabs the disc with suction cups or something.

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That's probably what it is. I often see the same type of circular marks on the inside of DVD cases, though I've never seen it on a disc. But that was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw those pictures. The marks are shaped and spaced too regularly to be some kind of oxidation or rot, it has to be machine-made.

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Originally Posted by Yfrid

can you make a better pic? they're really blurred, i can't see how exactly the damage looks

i had a circle on my soul calibur for dc, that's happened on my first dc.
my little brother was running in the room and hit the controller cord while i was playing and catapulted the console to the ground, the disc bounced inside the drive and the spinning motor drawed a circle on the surface, but these on your discs seems different

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its really hard to get a good picture of them cuz my camera sucks and any movement at all makes the picture blurry as hell. i tried really hard with it in sunlight this time and got 2 more that look better

http://home.comcast.net/~kenshindono...resurface4.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~kenshindono...resurface5.JPG

they dont appear to be actually ground into the disk is the weird thing Like i said if you just look at them in faint ambient light, like the light from a bathroom or something straight down you dont see them. It has to be a bright direct light. Like a halogen light or outside

So any ideas? Like duane and Devil say in the last 2 posts, those marks are quite uniform, it makes me think its not rot or anything but maybe something from a resurfacing machine holding it or maybe a factory machine? Though i dont see how it would be put together if theres suction cups on the layers.

friggin weird

Im gonna play test it this week, i didn't have time to do so this weekend. Im still wondering if anyone has a copy of tactics ogre. The brief moment i played it it seemed to stutter and pause a few seconds when loading character turns. That was with just a quick wipe down though. Ive done the standard cleaning regiment on it now. But if it still does it im wondering if thats just normal.

grr these things are really bugging me!

The amount of material resurfacing takes off isn't enough to matter, especially if you won't scratch it yourself for it to need it again (or again multiple times). The bottom layer on CDs/DVDs is actually pretty thick compared to what it needs to be, so it's not terrible. That said, I still say avoid scratches on the bottom as sometimes a resurface won't fix the problem and you'll be screwed (but those discs are usually horribly mangled, like someone stepped on it and moonwalked with it or something).

hmmm.... am i wrong or those marks are actually the only part of the surface wich is clean? i mean, it looks like the whole disc is slightly opaque and only inside those circles it looks shiny as supposed to be... isn't it?

maybe that disc was stored in some kind of discs holder like this one:
http://www.oneinhundred.com/upfiles/...2--5250510.jpg
think if the circular marks are holes on every disc holder page, maybe it was made with bad plastics,(or synthetic material) and (maybe exposed to heat) after a long time it made some kind of chemical reaction and caused the disc to opacify, but not where the plastic had holes causing that odd looking effect
i'm just guessing...

Get some rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth and wipe that off if it's at all dirty. ;) (dry wiping will help some, but anything smudgy or greasy needs a bit more)

Frankly, I think your disc is fine. Unless the game is actually having read problems, then I wouldn't worry about it. I can't think of what discs I have with patterns like that, but generally they become very apparent if I breathe hot air on the disc. (Like an open-mouth, "ha" exhale. I don't know how to describe it.)

no your right yfrid. it seems like when the light hits it the disk itself has kinda 'frosty' look to the areas around the holes, and the holes are totally clean. Its way bizarre. Ive been way busy this week so havent played it. I'll get some game time in tomorow night and see whats up> hopefully it doesn't have those pauses durring character moves. Duno if thats cuz it wasn't completely cleaned when i tested it briefly or if thats normal for the game. Do you really think a storage thing like that would give marks?

@kool kitty. I did wipe it down, i did the full cleaning regime on it (at that pic it was just a wipe down with a bit of windex)

started with quick windex wipe, then washed it thoroughly in soapy running water, dried it off, then gave it a thorough scrub down with 91% alochol. All with microfiber cloths. The stuffs still there

@ dwane. Are the games you have with it used copies or original new games?

I looked at every one of my disks and noticed that the 2nd disk of resident evil 2 has a FAINT outline of this. Its not nearly as extreme as this, but in just the right light i see a faint outline of the same thing. And that game is brand new, only played once

grrr what the flip are these things, i have never seen them. I guess i'll find out in the next day or 2 if it runs ok. I wound up spending too much time today opening and cleaning most of my genesis games now that my new bit is in.

Ive got 3 on my Sonic Adventure disk.

The game plays fine.

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Originally Posted by kenshin-dono

@ dwane. Are the games you have with it used copies or original new games?

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Well, I don't know if I've seen them on any game discs, but definitely video DVDs. Either way, they were brand new, and they played fine.