Don't forget to clean your dvd drives laser lens!

[freebird73717]

Well I just had one of those Homer Simpson moments where I just want to slap myself on my forhead and yell "DOH!" I was just trying to backup one of my new dvds and was having a heck of time getting the danged disc to rip to the hard drive. It would fail about half the way through the rip process. I checked the disc over to make sure there was no scratches and then tried again. Still no luck. Then I thought this is a new disc so mabee new protection so I downloaded the latest dvdfabhddecrypter. Tried again and still no joy. Here comes the "doh". It finally dawned on me that I hadn't cleaned the laser lens on my dvd drive in a long time. So I broke out the lens cleaning dvd and popped it into the drive. I ran the thing twice just to make sure. Tried to rip the disc again and low and behold it worked!

Point of the story is this... don't be like me and forget to clean/service your drives!

It's just downright embarrassing.

[rumplestiltskin]

Yep; good advice. Thanks for the reminder!

[oldandinthe way]

If you are reading rental or other borrowed DVDs or CDs it helps to clean the DVDs before placing the media in your drive. Crap from dirty media is often transfered to the drive.

I keep a package of Fellowes Cleaning Wipes at my computer and near my players and use them.