Repairing a Flakey CD-ROM Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kent_Diego
  • Start date Start date
K

Kent_Diego

I have some old CD-ROM drives that do not reliably read CDs. Has anyone had
success fixing CD-ROM drives? I was thinking opening the drive and cleaning
the lens may help.

TIA,
Kent
 
Kent_Diego said:
I have some old CD-ROM drives that do not reliably read CDs. Has
anyone had success fixing CD-ROM drives? I was thinking opening the
drive and cleaning the lens may help.
Click to expand...

Waste of time with DVD burners so cheap now.
 
Kent_Diego said:
I have some old CD-ROM drives that do not reliably read CDs. Has anyone had
success fixing CD-ROM drives? I was thinking opening the drive and cleaning
the lens may help.

TIA,
Kent
Click to expand...

With many laptop drives, the lens is exposed when the tray is open.
Meaning you can use a NEW ultrafine paintbrush to dust the lens off.
You may consider getting one of those cleaner CDS with little brushes
placed to hit the lens. Beyond this level of repair, I don't recommend.
(Cost/benefit)
 
With many laptop drives, the lens is exposed when the tray is open.
Meaning you can use a NEW ultrafine paintbrush to dust the lens off.
You may consider getting one of those cleaner CDS with little brushes
placed to hit the lens. Beyond this level of repair, I don't recommend.
(Cost/benefit)
Click to expand...
Has this ever worked for you?
 
Kent_Diego said:
Has this ever worked for you?
Click to expand...

Yes.

I've done the paintbush trick on an eONE (Emachines iMac Ripoff) since
I didn't have any ready means of getting a spare drive. And the drive
would've been a pain to swap out anyway. It worked beautifully.

I've also fixed a skipping DVD player with the cleaner CD. So it worked
for me.
 
(e-mail address removed) wrote
Kent_Diego wrote
Click to expand...
With many laptop drives, the lens is exposed when the tray is open.
Meaning you can use a NEW ultrafine paintbrush to dust the lens off.
You may consider getting one of those cleaner CDS with little brushes
placed to hit the lens. Beyond this level of repair, I don't recommend.
(Cost/benefit)
Click to expand...

It would be worth trying cleaning the lense with isopropanol when
its that accessible. Smokers particularly produce a surprising level
of crap in any system they use, you can always pick a system thats
used by a smoke from the stench inside them. That does get on
optical drive lenses, tho its invisible, it does have an effect.
 
I have some old CD-ROM drives that do not reliably read CDs. Has anyone had
success fixing CD-ROM drives?
Click to expand...


Yes, sometimes the belt is shot from heat or just poor
quality and stretching (but that effects the tray
opening/closing, not reading), sometimes the tray doesn't
stay open or closed (switch problem), or the lens is dirty
or the optical sensor isn't aligned anymore.
I was thinking opening the drive and cleaning
the lens may help.
Click to expand...

Maybe, if it's the problem. I've gotten maybe 1 out of 3
reading again, but doing better with pressed discs than CDR.
I dripped pure alcohol on the lens while holding it sideways
so it ran off the edge. Overall, not worth the time to do
on an old CDROM drive these days, especially since a few
office superstores used to sell CDRW drives for almost free
after rebate so I accumulated a stack of them for personal
use. Certainly not worth the time to open someone else's
drive and fiddle with it, NOS (new old stock) CDROM drives
can be had for $10 or less, for example
http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=2332
 
Kent_Diego said:
I have some old CD-ROM drives that do not reliably read CDs. Has anyone had
success fixing CD-ROM drives? I was thinking opening the drive and cleaning
the lens may help.

TIA,
Kent
Click to expand...

Have had several revivals with cd lens cleaner, which is a cd with tiny
brushes in it. If its an old drive, be aware that while all read
pressed CDs, some cant read CDR and a lot dont read CDRW.

If youre penniless enough to need to repair a cdrom, those lens
cleaners are easy to make.


NT
 
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