Scratched disk

[miteke]

My startcraft disk just got scratched up. Is there a way to get a replacement disk without having to buy the whole game?

[ZeroDarkStar]

Of course there is. And technically if you own the actual software, it's not illegal at all. Look for torrents. I'm not going to specifically link any right now however.

[OboeGuru]

Depending on how bad the scratches are, it's possible to get them buffed out; there are numerous disc-buffing products in existence, though you have to be careful to buff it evenly, it's not hard to damage the disc even worse by using a buffer incorrectly.
I'm assuming that you've tried using the disc in its scratched state before posting, just because a disc is scratched doesn't necessarily mean that its unusable. Besides, the whole disc is only needed for the install operation, only a small portion of the disc is read for the CD-check operation when the software is run, if I'm not mistaken.

As for a replacement disc -- the Starcraft software is pretty cheap nowadays, so you might be out of luck as far as a free replacement goes, but it couldn't hurt to contact Blizzard support anyways.

[SeriousGamer104]

Rub toothpaste on it!!!!!! Trust me, you will be playing again in no time!!
I've been gone for some time now, it's good to be back!

[bluemicrobyte]

Try gently cleaning the disk with a soft cloth (don't use tissues or textured materials).

If you can't get it to work again, Starcraft is only something like 10-15 dollars so it wouldn't cost too much to just buy a new one.

[miteke]

We've tried buffing it and were going to try peanut butter (never heard of toothpaste). I almost bought a disk repair kit at a garage sale last month but passed on it, figuring it was a dubious buy. Now I wish I had.

$15 is not that much, but to my 13 year old son who owns the game and just got it for his birthday, that's a wad of cash.

What are torrents? Forgive my middle aged naivety for not knowing.

[Modred]

Besides, the whole disc is only needed for the install operation, only a small portion of the disc is read for the CD-check operation when the software is run, if I'm not mistaken.
Depending on which part is scratched, playing the campaign could be impossible because the cinematic movies are contained on disc. I haven't tried using my disc in Windows since it was damaged, but on OS X I can do multiplayer or custom game just fine, but the game crashes on attempting to load the opening cinematic for the campaign.

And torrents are a type of peer-2-peer filesharing system, in which you download the file, in small chunks, from multiple hosts at one time. It's supposed to help optimize your download rate by filling in unused bandwidth on your end with more connections.

BitTorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/) was the one to start the whole torrent deal, but there is a plethora of clients now. I use uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/). You can search for torrent files on BitTorrent's site and several other places (try a Google or Yahoo search to find places, or I'm sure someone here can recommend some).

[Neo]

Ignore the torrents, as far as I know, any active starcraft disc ones aren't going to work.

To replace the disk, you'd have to send it to Blizzard along with $10, and a little note like (need a replacement disk/disk scratched/etc...) though...

You can get Starcraft (either disk) for $10 now from any electronics store... so it would be cheaper to just go pick a new copy up.

Also, I would suggest you look into using Alcohol 120% to make a "virtual image" of the new disk, and that way you can mount the game with Daemon Tools... err, this way you can save the physical disk.

EDIT: Also be careful about using anything like Toothpaste or Peanut Butter. Tooth Paste does work, but only if its the classic white paste stuff -- anything with baking soda, or "gels" or anything like that will simply damage the disk further.

-Neo

[miteke]

Why does toothpaste or peanut butter help?

[Neo]

Sometimes it can help fill in minute gaps in the disc which can sometimes help the 'laser read the disc better' or something to that effect.

However personally after testing peanut butter/toothpaste and similar things, it helped very little (I had to buy a new disc anyways -- happened to be a Starcraft one as well, heh)

-Neo

[Jeff]

Yeah, I'd just buy a new copy. I saw the SC BattleChest at GameStop for $10 the other day.

[Basan]

If you're set set in saving the money, I've used soap (http://www.warboards.org/showpost.php?p=232390&postcount=8) for it (the resurfacing) in the past and it worked nicely. Just keep in mind that to dry the CD you must use a soft clean cloth but nothing roughed. ;)

[AzVortez]

i use to have a buffing kit. worked very well, although now my cd is beyond repair, lol. default campaigns keep crashing SC.