eli5 why does putting toothpaste on scratched disks fix them?

Question

As the title says why does toothpaste fix disks

In: 2049

Answer 1

The way to fix a scatched disk is to smooth out the scratches or fill them in with something. I always used a yellow highlighter to fill in the scratches as opposed to using an abrasive like toothpaste to ground down and smooth out the scratches. They used to sell cd “scratch removers” that worked in the same fashion. Coat it with the highlighter then use a soft cloth and rub back and forth from the inner radius to the outer radius as you rotate the disk (don’t rub the cloth in the same direction the laser would read the info). Its great for cd’s but I haven’t tried it on blu ray or even dvd, those have so much data packed in a tight space that it might not work, but its worth a try.