DVD/CD Cleaning Disk?

[ukcat]

What brand or type on Cleaning Disk for DVD/CD players would you all recommend?

Thanks

[garryheather]

None of them - they can do more harm than good.

A forum search will yield a few results that might be worth reading, some people swear by them, others swear AT them, and your hardware manufacturer could void your warranty because of them.

Why do you think you need one ?

[ukcat]

I just had seen them at various places and I have various computers,home dvd players,car cd player and some several years old just though you needed to clean them from time to time.

[garryheather]

You shouldn't have to - in my professional capacity, I have ever only had to clean one lens assembly, and that was because the user had been blowing cigarette smoke into it for years. And I certainly didn't use a cleaning disc, we're talking high grade alcohol, chamis swaps and a lot of patience here.

Personally I don't recommend them at all - other people here probably will, though. I've seen the effects of cleaning discs and they're not always pretty !

[ukcat]

Thanks for the info on this. I not going to fool with one then

[aggies11]

Optical drives have been "Self cleaning" for years.

I remember when I got my first 4x CDROM drive, and "self cleaning" was actually a selling feature!

Exactly what this cleaning involves, I"m not sure. But I imagine at very least it's a "You don't need to wory about cleaning it" type thing.

Aggies

[redwudz]

I have got a 'chunk of crud' on my laptop DVD lens. It hangs out in bare space when the tray extends. I have carefully cleaned it with an alcohol swab. Most PC DVD-CD drives are entirely internal and I would'nt recommend this method, because it requires dissasembly. The lens system is very delicate and most cleaner disks are just brushes that scrape over the lens assembly as it is desparately trying to read the disk. If you have heard your lens assembly seeking focus on a bad CD you know what I mean. First line of defense is canned air, blown carefully into the opening below the tray. If that fails to fix your problem, you probably have a bigger problem than dust on the lens.

[chaseru]

I have had to clean the laser lens of my Pioneer DVR-A03 about three times in three years by cracking open the case and cleaning the lens with a Q-tip and denentured alcohol. The first time I did this, I was very timid and didn't clean the lens good enough. At least with this model, the laser lens can take a fairly aggressive Q-tip cleaning job

I tried a laser lens cleaning CD that used a small brush glued to the disc, which didn't work.

I either had to throw the drive away or be brave and open the drive.

And no, I don't smoke and the drive does not run in a harsh environment.

[garryheather]

I don't see how does it get so dirty then. The only things I can thing of are dirty discs (in which case you've got no-one to blame for that but yourself), or the fans in your PC are blowing the wrong way and it's forcing dust into the drive or something.

I've still got an old 2x CD writer for example that is still in regular use, and I've never even had to clean the optical block on that relic. Drives should not get that dirty, you don't leave the loading tray open for extended periods or anything... ? I've seen that happen before now, most noticably on duplicators where they tend to eject the discs automatically, even in unattended mode.