DRU 500A won't recognize lens cleaner disc

[chaseru]

I've owned a Pioneer DVR-A03 for about two years now. During that time I have had three instances where the drive wouldn’t read or burn certain media. I was always able to get the drive working again by cracking open the drive shooting it with compressed air and giving a thorough cleaning to the lens directly with a Q-tip and alcohol.

I just had to do this last night. I wasn’t able to burn some Memorex DVD-R 4x media. After giving the drive a cleaning, the drive worked fine.

[Satanico Pandemonium]

Should i do this "compressed air thing" through the tray...without to open the whole drive?

[chaseru]

Should i do this "compressed air thing" through the tray...without to open the whole drive?

Unless you plan to clean the laser lens directly, I don't see much benefit of opening the drive just to give it a shot of compressed air.

You could try the compressed air first. If that didn't work, then open the drive and clean the lens. If you plan to replace the drive anyway if it doesn't work, there is no harm in opening it. It isn't too hard to figure out how to open the drive to expose the lens, but you may want to search this or other sites to find instruction regarding how to open your specific drive.