Just get the scratches out, and it'll work fine.

I have a manual CD/DVD de-scratcher that I paid I think $29 for about five years ago, and it's saved my patootie numerous times and earned it's keep many times over.

If you don't want to own your own disk polisher, you probably can find someone near you who will has one who will help.

CD de-scratchers can work though it might depend on the extent of the damage. Another option besides giving the seller negative feedback and bitching in email is a formal ebay complaint about the item/seller. That might result in your money back and returning the product, or it might not. Good luck!

Okay, there are two methods that I have found for descratching CDs, and they are this: take a gentle scrubby and some dish detergent and run the scrubby across the CD in straight lines, don't go in a circular motion, or it could damage the info on the CD. The other way of descratching CDs is really disgusting but it works; lick the CD in the same manner you would clean it with the scrubby, long straight licks, dry it off and drop it in the drive. It should work, I have had horribley damaged CDs work by doing either of these things. Then try ripping it using windows media player, that has never failed me, it seems to be a real work horse, at least in my opinion.

If the mechanical scratch removers don't do the job, there are two courses of last resort:

Exact Audio Copy

CDDA Paranoia

Both of them will, given enough time, read just about any CD that it is even slightly physically possible to read, and transcribe the bits onto your hard drive. Sadly, neither of them have a Mac version, so you'll need windows for the former, and linux for the latter.

(actually there have been a couple of attempt to port paranoia to the mac, but I don't think any of them are well-maintained)

Write the seller and try to resolve it - don't take it out by providing bad feedback. The descratchers thing might work but it's been awhile since I've done it. I did a quick search and found this:

http://tinyurl.com/ybro36

Good luck!

I've had really good luck with the scratch remover kit thing I bought at target like a million years ago...it saved several of my cd's long enough for me to get them ripped.

something else i'm surprised hasn't been mentioned already, try it with another computer / cd drive. different drives have different tolerances for scratches.

I've used a tiny bit of lemon Pledge furniture wax, buffed lightly with a lint-free (microfiber is good, the kind eyeglass places sometimes give out for free) cloth. The wax fills in the scratches just enough to make the CD readable.

Dish soap and a soft towel have worked wonders for me. I buy a lot of CDs secondhand and frequently content with scratches.

Put me square on the side of the disc repair kit crowd... my Disk Doctor or Scratch Doctor or whatever it's called (cranky thing with what appears to be a rubber belt that gets pulled across the spinning CD as you crank) has brought 3 discs back from the dead. I wouldn't use it for just minor scratches, though, because that's what cdparanoia is for.

And then, yeah, there's the "download someone else's rip" method. I own both LZ boxed sets (I assume we're talking about the studio ones, I think there are a couple live ones too) and if you don't hook up with tgrey, feel free to hit me up... or just hit Soulseek or Limewire since LZ is not exactly rare.

In either case, don't neg the ebay user unless you actually go through the whole complaint process first and come up empty handed, because you will get a retaliatory neg and no one needs that.

Find it on a P2P and DL it. you've purchased it in good faith and you essentially bought certain rights of access so there shouldn't be any concern (moral, legal, or otherwise) of your DLing it.

Ah, the greatest legal mind the world has evern known has spoken. Now all is known and the world is good.

I believe I have already asked you quite respectfully not to post in my journal again. I do not want your advice.

I would manually ban you, but it would appear that in itself is useless, because you will simply post comments anonomously, like you frequently do on other journals that have you banned. So, barring banning anonymous comments altogether, something I loathe to do because I do have non-LJ people who read me from time to time, I seem to be in a quandary.

I ask again - do NOT post in my journal, please.

Then you are more oblivious than I previously thought. There are quite a few people who have done what I am about to do.

You do not care for me. I do not care for you. I don't understand why you make comments on my journal in spite of these facts.

I am banning you now, Dov. Please stay away from me and mine.

You anoy Phil.
I bite you.

And not in the good and fun ways.

You should get your CD's from me. My company owns RCA and BMG. I get CD's for $2 each. We have many box sets...

just tell me what you like so I can shower you with presents...

I see most people mentioned getting the scratches out. However, if you take it to a Hollywood Video, they will have a professional scratch removal machine there. If you beg nicely, and probably offer to succumb to whatever $9.99 special they have running, they'll run it through for you. Oh, make sure to go on a not busy time.

*smooches*