Dirty CD ROM

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Robinson
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Paul Robinson

Hi can anyone help?

I've finally upgraded a friends computer after a week of faulty
installations.
I finally tracked it down to a dirty lens on the CD drive and swapped
the hard drive onto my machine and installed all software 1st time!

I bought an Allsopp cleaner disc, but it hasn't helped.
Is there any cleaner solution on the cleaner brushes I can use?

My friend is a heavy cigar smoker and I believe it's this that's on the
lens.

All help much appreciated

Paul
 
Just wait awhile...the cigars will kill him, and he won't have to worry
about it!

Bill Crocker
 
The time and cost of cleaning one CD Rom drive, you could probability buy a
DVD -/+ R/W drive. We live in a consumer based society and a new CD Rom
drive is more affordable than cleaning it.

Y.
 
To effectively clean a dirty CD lens, one needs to open up the CD unit.
Once you have access to the lens, you could wipe it with a clean piece of
cloth. I normally use cotton-buds dipped into an alcohol solution (10%
alcohol mix).
Take care not to break anything (clips, ribbon-cabble, etc.) while you're at
it. And don't drink the alki once you're through with the cleaning ! ;-)

Good luck!
 
Broomstick said:
To effectively clean a dirty CD lens, one needs to open up the CD unit.
Once you have access to the lens, you could wipe it with a clean piece of
cloth. I normally use cotton-buds dipped into an alcohol solution (10%
alcohol mix).
Take care not to break anything (clips, ribbon-cabble, etc.) while you're at
it. And don't drink the alki once you're through with the cleaning ! ;-)

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Many thanks to all who replied. I've cleaned the CD/DVD drives and I
don't think after all it is them!
I have an external CD copier which I have attached and tried to install
the XP service pack 1 which it won't and says 'file corrupt'.
However, when I take out the hard drive, attach it to mine and try to
install, no problem!

Could it be a motherboard problem, as when he had Win 98 installed he
didn't have this problem.

Cheers

Paul
 
It could be you have some faulty RAM. If RAM isn't up to par when trying to
install an OS this will happen. When installing, it takes everything your PC
has to do the job. It is working hard to decompress large cab files and
such during the install. If RAM is weak or a part of it is failing, then
you will get messages about corrupt files or files missing during the
install.

Being it works fine in the other computer you put the hard drive in, is
probably cause that one has good RAM. So, if you can swap out the memory
sticks with some that are known to be good, try that. Or, download and run
the free memory tester called memtest86. If it comes up with any errors,
that is your problem. If you have more then one stick I would run test with
one stick in at a time.
http://www.memtest86.com/

Ed.
 
Ed. <[email protected]> said:
It could be you have some faulty RAM. If RAM isn't up to par when trying to
install an OS this will happen. When installing, it takes everything your PC
has to do the job. It is working hard to decompress large cab files and
such during the install. If RAM is weak or a part of it is failing, then
you will get messages about corrupt files or files missing during the
install.

Being it works fine in the other computer you put the hard drive in, is
probably cause that one has good RAM. So, if you can swap out the memory
sticks with some that are known to be good, try that. Or, download and run
the free memory tester called memtest86. If it comes up with any errors,
that is your problem. If you have more then one stick I would run test with
one stick in at a time.
http://www.memtest86.com/

Ed.
Click to expand...



Cheers Ed!

You've pointed me in the right direction.
It wasn't faulty memory but incompatible!
I for got that I bought 2100 DDR mem and they had run out so he assured
me the DDR 333 2700 would be OK. IT WASN'T!

I have swapped one of my 2100 sticks and it's fine. If I put my 2100
stick in with the 333 stick it crashes so I guess you can't run the 2
together, So back to the shop tomorrow to swap!

Many thanks to everyone for their help

Paul
 
You still may be able to use the DDR 333 by itself. You can not mix
different speed rated RAM.

Y.
 
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