whats the best way to clean a cd-rom drive? mine needs some cleaning.

Here's a Tutorial on cleaning & repairing CDROMs, http://www.deinmeister.de/cdrep_e.htm

That's an interesting page, is there a similar way to recondition cd writers/burners?

It's the same process

Thanks. Have you ever reconditioned a writer, and did it help, or is a writer pretty much dead or on the road to junk if it starts playing up?

Just wondering because I use my writer to read a lot too, and I'm not looking forwards to buying another one too soon because I'm broke.

C

If it's not working well then you have nothing to lose by trying to clean it. I've been recommending this cleaning method for a number of years and haven't had any negative comments from people who have tried it.

This will help if your burner is getting dirty from high usage, and if the laser is wearing out then cleaning the lense may help extend it's life a little.

Thanks again, I haven't had any problems yet, just I know that because I read and write with the same drive I am likely to knacker it out.

BTW has anyone used Datawrite, Bulkwrite or Proformance media?
I normally used Datasafes but my local shop has got these in now, and although I've used the Proformance I thought I'd ask anyway.

L8r
c