How to fix the built-in optical drive in a laptop with your own hands. How to clean a DVD

A regularly used CD-ROM or DVD drive likes to collect dust and other "junk stuff". If you are looking for a way to effectively clear disk reader without having to disassemble the computer into parts, here is the instruction.

When the CD-ROM Drive Needs Cleaning

The most obvious signal is when your DVD drive fails. work fine. It can be caused by many things, but disk cleanup may I help.

Another sign is when your computer has difficulty reading discs. The third signal is strange sound when the drive is trying to open the disc or even during the extension and retraction.

Another sign is when used disk twitches(although then it might be the drive's fault). These are just the most common symptoms.

The general conclusion is: if your CD-ROM/DVD doesn't work, clean it up. If this does not help, try cleaning it again, and if this does not help, the drive is probably defective and you should replace it with a new one or send it in for repair.

What you need to clean the drive

Of course, do not use the blowing method. Your breath contains a lot of moisture, which can cause even more damage, up to and including irreversible destruction of the actuator.

How to prepare a drive for cleaning

Turn on the computer and remove the drive baffle. Then turn off the computer again, leaving the baffle pulled out. Remove the disc from the drive if it was in the computer.

How to clean a DVD drive

Insert a "straw" into the opening of a can of compressed air. If you have a laptop, place it on the edge of a table with the CD-ROM/DVD compartment hanging in the air.

Hold the can of air perpendicular to the floor (i.e. upright) and be careful not to pump it as the gas it contains can damage your CD-ROM/DVD. Insert a straw into the drive slot and lightly press the canister deflate button.

Repeat the procedure two or three times, and then turn on the computer and see if the drive works.

What to do if it does not lead to the desired result

Some tutorial videos or web pages recommend that you completely remove the drive from your computer. Do not do that. In many cases, performing this operation may be worth voiding the warranty, and even if not, it may damage the drive.

what can you do

Call a service technician or bring your computer in for service. You can also contact the manufacturer and ask for advice. If your computer is under warranty, then, of course, you have a recorded phone number to call in such cases.

A few tips for cleaning the drive

The CD-ROM / DVD drive is a very delicate part of a computer that needs good care. You can clean it before the alarms appear.

Use compressed air carefully and responsibly to avoid damaging your computer. When the container is empty, do not throw it in the trash. Compressed air cans often contain toxic substances, so we must dispose of them in special waste containers representing

You will need

• - clearing dvd-disk;
• - special liquid for cleaning;
• - an aerosol can with compressed air;
• - cotton buds;
• - ethanol;
• - water.

Instruction

Read the instructions for your device and find out if a special cleaning disc can be used. Choose which treatment, dry or wet, you will use when cleaning the head. If wet, you will need a special cleaning fluid, which is applied to the disc in the amount of two drops.

Insert the cleaning disc with the arrow pointing forward into the player or drive on your computer. The operating time will be equal to the duration of playing a track specially recorded on the disc. Such a disc can be purchased at a specialized store that sells household appliances.

Blow dust off the lens surface using a special aerosol can with compressed, purified air. A thin plastic tube extending from the head of the cartridge allows you to direct the air flow into Right place.

To clean the laser, point the tube at the lens and "blow" for two to three seconds. Such cartridges are sold in specialized stores, their cost is low, while they last for a long time. If you try to remove dust with an ordinary brush, you are unlikely to succeed at 100%.

Clean the surface of the lens with a cotton swab, the thinner it is, the better. You can make it yourself by taking a match, cutting it off and wrapping a little cotton wool around its tip. The main thing is not to scratch the surface of the prism and try not to leave cotton wool inside the device.

Wipe the prism with a few gentle strokes. Then assemble the laser back, correctly aligning the risks. If the contamination is very strong, use ethyl alcohol diluted with water, in a ratio of 1: 1.

Do not apply strong pressure - this way you can erase the special anti-reflective layer located on the surface of the lens and damage its mechanism.

note

If after carrying out the above operations, the DVD player still does not work, most likely the laser head cannot be restored, or the malfunction lies elsewhere.

Sources:

• How to clean the DVD laser lens head

If your drive stopped reading discs or began to read them barely, which means that he is clogged. Or rather, the read head is clogged. It needs to be cleaned to drive started working again as before. But first you need to take it apart. Get your tools ready and get to work.

You will need

• Two small screwdrivers. One is flat, and the second is a cross;
• Soft brush (a large one is also suitable, with which cosmetics are applied);
• Special compact vacuum cleaner for electronics.

Instruction

A brush alone will not be enough, because dirt and dust have one unpleasant feature to accumulate even in the most inaccessible places. In addition, a vacuum cleaner on the farm will not be superfluous, because with its help you can remove dust from all the cracks and "nooks and crannies" of the system.

Now remove the front panel from the output tray, and then proceed with the cleaning process. You can wash the front panel with a tray with soap or just walk with a soft brush. Only in this case, take enough time to completely dry these.

Dust accumulated on the laser lens can be removed with a soft brush. Alcohol and cotton wool is a classic method. But it’s better not to risk it, because alcohol is not always the case, and the fleece can leave fibers on the cleaned parts. Be careful with your hands - do not touch the lens. The presser can be vacuumed. And finally, take a vacuum cleaner through all the insides of the drive, in which there can only be dust.

Assembly is carried out in exactly the opposite sequence. Only here there is a slight subtlety - move the movable panel located in front of the mechanism back and forth so that the extreme peg on it clearly falls into the guides of the receiving tray. Don't forget to put the front panel on it too.

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During operation, the car radio begins to get dirty, dust gets into it. As a result, “swallowing” of the disk may begin to occur, followed by its “spitting out”. With such symptoms, it is necessary to clean the radio.

Instruction

Purchase a special cleaning pad that has a cloth and liquid applied to it. Insert the disc and run it, strictly following the instructions. If this does not help, then carefully remove radio tape recorder from your original location, unplug the electrical connector and place the device on a flat, well-lit surface to take a close look at inner space this equipment.

Remove the top and bottom covers, if one of them is solid, then remove only the one that allows you to do this. Take a close look radio tape recorder and remove all dirt and small parts and objects that have fallen inside. After that, provide access to the laser head by removing unnecessary parts.

Inspect the radio head, if there are traces of dirt on it, then immediately remove them with a cloth or napkin, which you first moisten in an alcohol solution. If you have a cassette player installed, then, after disassembling it, press the start and rewind buttons several times to remove dirt accumulated there.

Examine the lens. Clean it with a dry cloth or cotton. Do not use alcohol or other liquids that may darken or destroy the lens if it is made of plastic. As a last resort, use soapy water. This is especially true for pollution caused by smoking inside the car, because smoke deposits can only be removed with a liquid composition.

Gather radio tape recorder in reverse order, connect the electrical connectors and check its operation. Repeat if necessary. In case of serious malfunctions, remove it and take it to a specialized repair center for this type of equipment.

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note

In order not to experience problems in such cases, we propose to figure out how to clean the car radio from dust and other microparticles of dirt. We put the radio on a clean and well-lit surface and begin partial disassembly - the top and bottom covers (it happens that you can remove only one, this is normal) and clean the space under them.

Useful advice

How to connect the radio yourself? If you connect it incorrectly, you risk, at best, getting the sound of the wrong quality and not the power that is expected, and at worst, ruining the system itself and the car. If this warning did not affect you in any way and you have a great desire and are determined to install an audio system in your car yourself, let's try to find out how to do it correctly.

Every piece of equipment wears out and breaks down over time. This fate awaits your computer drive. Due to clogging of the lens, it begins to read discs worse. If you do not do prevention, then soon you will have to replace it with a new one. How to clean the drive lens, read on.

You will need

• - liquid for washing contact lenses;
• - a straw;
• - soft brush

Instruction

Turn off the power. Remove the drive from system block your his personal computer then disassemble it. Take a straw (meaning a tube for cocktails). Bring it to the lens. Rest one of its edges against the drive head.

Then gently pull the saw through the tube to clean the lens. Do not under any circumstances blow. AT otherwise dust will mix with moist air and stick tightly to the lens and head. Also, do not touch the lens, so as not to disturb its alignment.

Take a small plastic container. You will need it to pour the lens care liquid into it. The container must be dry. Never put your fingers into it. This can lead to the fact that some small particle gets into the liquid, which, mixed with it, can then damage the surface of the lens.

Take a soft brush. Dip it in the liquid and run it over the lens. Select the direction that matches the direction in which the disc is rotating. Please note that the liquid must flood the drive lens, but at the same time, in no case get on the drive head itself.

After the liquid has been applied, wait five minutes. During this time, all the dirt that has accumulated in the lens should dissolve. To finish cleaning the drive lens, swipe it with a dry but still damp brush. This will remove any remaining dirt.

Dry the lens. To do this, sweep it with a dry soft brush. This procedure should be repeated until the lens is visually dry. After that, cover the drive with a paper towel (never use a cloth one). Wait 15 minutes.

Damaged DVD or CD drive in laptops is the most common flaw in devices that have worked for more than 2-3 years. Dust that will definitely settle on the focusing lens after many years of operation, for sure, if it does not lead to a complete failure of the drive, then it will make its work less reliable and faster. The reason for the complete failure to receive or write information from a computer to an optical medium may lie in both hardware and software malfunctions of the system. Remember: the optical drive in laptops may refuse to read information from DVD discs for so many reasons.

First, it is necessary to exclude by 100% the probability of a software failure in operating system. You can simply insert a disc into the drive that can be used as a bootable one. Either an installation distribution kit with Windows, or some kind of service disk designed to work with hard drive, as well as for treating viruses, banners, preparing the system for installing an operating system from scratch, etc. The main thing is to put in the BIOS that DVD drive is the first to be loaded, i.e. from him, not from hard drive, you need to download. Probably, many who independently installed the operating system either from a disk or from a flash drive know what this is about. If the loading of such a disk is quite successful, then the malfunction should be looked for in the installed operating system, namely: in drivers, as well as in software products, which can in one way or another change the system configuration of virtual and physical optical drives. Remove all dubious recording software, dvd ripping disks, and also check in the device manager whether your drive is detected correctly or not. Of course, all software faults it is almost impossible to describe within the framework of one article, but you can give universal advice: do a system restore.

Secondly, if the drive refused to accept boot disk, then most likely there is a hardware problem. Often the whole solution to the problem comes down to the fact that it is necessary to clean the focusing lens. Dust falling on this lens prevents the beam of the laser head from transmitting normally reflected from DVD disc signal. If at any stage of operation this led to read or write errors, then one "fine" day, the drive may simply refuse to read a completely clean and new disk. Most the right way The solution to this problem is to clean the focusing lens.

Now the so-called cleaning discs have become very widespread. The idea of ​​such discs is certainly good, but the technical execution is not always acceptable. Some samples can generally, instead of being useful, simply “finish off” the sensitive mechanisms and optics of the laser head. Also, improper use of cleaning disks can lead to the fact that the user himself will simply finally “finish off” the drive. Instructions for such discs are often written either in English or in Chinese, which makes understanding the principle of operation, purpose and use of such a disc simply inaccessible to a Russian-speaking person. The main mistake of users is the incorrect application of cleaning fluid. As a rule, it is necessary to apply it only to certain cleaning bumps, and very little, placing the disc at an angle of about 45 degrees relative to the horizon. An excessive amount of this liquid simply floods the laser head, making reading information virtually impossible.

If we talk about Chinese cleaning discs from the category of 100-150 rubles, then their purchase will not be justified both from the practical and from the economic side. And if your problem is not in the lens, then this is money thrown to the wind. To protect the reputation of cleaning discs, we note that new non-contact cleaning discs have now begun to appear. Their main difference is that they work like wind turbines, that is, they blow through the laser head without direct contact. It is these cleaning discs that we recommend purchasing without fear of damaging the sensitive elements of the optical drive.

How to clean a DVD drive without a cleaning disc

Many master repairmen, although they themselves sometimes recommend the use of cleaning discs, but never use them. The cleaning disc is a solution for novice users and housewives. You can clean the drive much more professionally and better only when you take it out of the laptop and disassemble it. To disassemble the drive, you do not need any complex equipment and conditions. All you need is a table, a set of screwdrivers, a paperclip, a needle, a syringe, ear sticks, and isopropyl alcohol.

How to remove a drive

First, you need to turn off the laptop. Turn it face down, remove the battery.

No matter how ridiculous and unreliable it may seem, the fact remains: on all modern laptops, all fastening of the drive to the laptop is done with the help of 1 screw. Take a thin Phillips screwdriver and remove it.

Also this method you can take it into service when you urgently need to pull out the disk, but the electricity was turned off and the battery is low. After threading a needle or a paper clip into the technological hole, the drive will obediently open, and you can pull it out completely by pulling on the disc tray.

How to disassemble a drive

Turning the opened optical drive face down reveals the rear panel cover, which hides many important elements of the laser system.

You remove the 4 retaining screws, and the cover will obediently be removed without the slightest effort on your part. After removing the cover of the rear panel of the laser drive, we have access to the back of the laser diode, as well as the optical system.

Then you can put on the cover, and also tighten the 4 fixing screws.

How to clean a focusing lens

The lens is very sensitive to touch, so it is better not to touch it again with your hands or tools. For starters, you can try to limit yourself to purging from a can of compressed air.

If this does not help, then we recommend using an ear stick previously moistened with 90% isopropyl alcohol to wipe the lens. The second dry and clean end of the stick must remove the remaining alcohol. Remember that it is simply unacceptable to use cologne, moonshine, vodka for these purposes. You will only do harm. Isopropyl alcohol evaporates quickly, is relatively non-toxic, and does not leave marks on glass and lenses, which is very important within the framework of the technical task. Then it is necessary to dry everything again from a can of compressed air. It remains only to assemble everything, insert the drive and screw in the mounting screw. Assembly is simple and intuitive.

Finally, we note that in some cases, it will still not be possible to eliminate the breakdown, since it can lie in a burned-out LED laser, in worn-out mechanics, in burned-out driver microcircuits, etc. Therefore, the last repair option is to completely replace the DVD drive.

A frightening situation for many - you insert a disc into an optical drive, but nothing happens! Or you have to wait longer for content to load than a cup of tea has time to cool. Familiar? If so, then most likely the drive is clogged or dust has accumulated in it.

Let's try to figure out how to clean the drive, and how difficult it is to do it yourself at home.

Tools needed for cleaning

Since you need to disassemble the drive for cleaning, a couple of screwdrivers and tools that directly clean debris and dust are indispensable.

You will need:

• flat screwdriver
• Phillips screwdriver
• brush (with soft long bristles, both cosmetic and painting brushes are suitable)
• portable mini vacuum cleaner (there are even special computer vacuum cleaners to help clean hard-to-reach places)

Procedure for cleaning

Our step-by-step instruction will help you figure out where to start and what points to pay special attention to.

We disassemble the cd-rom drive:

• Place the drive with the back side up so you can see the screws that secure the metal case. Loosen the screws with a screwdriver.
• Locate the latches on the front panel and push them (for example, with a screwdriver) and slide the panel forward to remove.
• In an already ajar drive, unscrew the stop plate and pull out the output tray. To do this, the tray is pulled out until it stops, and with the stopper fixed, it is pulled out until it is completely detached.
• Remove the top panel of the case (in some drives, this requires special hooks to be moved aside). Wipe the front panel with a soft cloth or brush. If it is very dirty and you wash it with soapy water, be sure to dry it thoroughly before assembly.

So, the drive is disassembled and the most important part comes. If there is a cooling device above the laser head and lens, it will need to be removed.

Lenses should never be touched by hand! Also, do not blow with your mouth - use only a brush.

When cleaning the mechanisms adjacent to the lens, be especially careful in places where there is grease - you do not need to completely wash it. DVD-ROM drives use a special silicone lubricant that withstands high temperatures and does not dry out for years. Use a vacuum cleaner to clean all the insides of the drive, even where it would seem that there is no dust - it may simply not be visible.

Final chords - drive assembly

Assemble the drive in the exact reverse order. Top cover screwed on, the front panel snapped into place. The tray moves.

It is important that there are no unnecessary parts left and that all components are well fixed. And, of course, thoroughly dried before assembly, if you subjected them to wet processing.

After all the manipulations, you can check the performance and evaluate the results achieved.

We can help you

If you do not risk disassembling and cleaning the drive yourself, we will always be happy to help! Leave us your application by letter or by phone, and our representative will contact you.

Hi all. In addition to cleaning CDs with soap and water, there are many other effective ways. This article will tell you how and how to clean compact discs (CDs and DVDs).

Often, many people have a situation where they put a disc into the drive of a computer or player, and it freezes and “does not want” to be played, or plays, but “snippets”. What caused it? First of all, by improper handling of the disk or by the fact that the disk has been in use for a very long time. If scratches form on the surface of the disc, then it is likely that it will not play correctly. In such cases, cleaning can help, although the success of this case will largely depend on the degree of damage to the disc coating. There are many "folk" ways to clean CDs and DVDs, some of them are able to surprise even experienced and experienced users with their invention.

How to clean a CD or DVD?

Use water and a soft cloth.
First of all, rinse the CD thoroughly. This is done in order to remove dust, adhering particles and grease stains from the surface. Immerse the CD or DVD in warm water, soak it there for a while, then take a soft, lint-free cloth and wipe the surface of the CD. Do not rub the surface too thoroughly and harshly. In order not to damage the data on the disk, there is a certain "pattern" of cleaning actions. When cleaning, you need to start from the center of the disc and move towards the edge. Never use towels, toilet paper, paper towels, or any other material or item that may cause minor scratches on the disc surface. Let the drive dry completely, and then check whether data is read from it correctly, whether it works without failures and pauses.

Cleaning the disc surface.... banana.
Most users don't even know that a banana can be used to clean a scratched drive. Take a fresh banana and cut it in two. Wipe the surface of the CD/DVD with it in a circular motion. The next step is to clean the disc surface with a soft cotton cloth. Before playing a disc, it is best if you use a cleaning spray and then wipe the disc with a dry and soft cloth.

Applying toothpaste or Vaseline.
The surface of the disc can also be cleaned with some household items such as toothpaste or petroleum jelly. However, this method can be used if the scratches are not too deep. Place an appropriate amount of any of these products on the surface of the disc and wipe gently with a soft cloth. Then, for the final cleaning, use a cleaning spray, wipe the disc dry and try to play it.

Use polish or special disc cleaner.
If the above tools were powerless, you can use a metal polish or a set of cleaning products for disks. After wiping the disc with a polished cloth, then wipe the disc with a soft, clean cloth, let it dry, and then try to play it. If it still does not work properly, try the last option, use specialized disk cleaning fluids.

These are just a few of the tools that can effectively clean the surface of CD/DVD discs. There are other ways, such as using alcohol, soda, etc. as a cleanser.