There seems to be an issue with some save files that stop you from playing the game. My disk is perfectly fine yet I kept getting the message "This disk is scratched blah blah blah". Turns out that by deleting a few of the most recent save games I was once again allowed into the wonderful world of Skyrim! Hope this helps other people and I hope this issue is looked into (quite frustrating when you don't know what's going on!!)

Could you please specify how many saves you had when you got this error and how many you deleted for it to work?
Much appreciated.