Cures for an uncooperative CD/DVD drive. Is related to a gunked-up lens. You can purchase drive cleaning kits that are intended to brush away crud from a drive’s lens. You open the Mac. Mac Mini won't read cd's or DVD's. Thread starter huckleberrylane; Start date Apr 15. And soft cloth cleaning method, I get the idea, but that didn't work for me. After pulling the drive, I inspected the lens and it was quite clean after all the effort I put into cleaning it. I removed the DVD in my Mac Mini and use it externally with a. The second method is much simpler as it merely requires the use of a commercial lens cleaning kit. Most DVD player user manuals, however, warn against the use of these lens cleaners. Basically, the lens cleaner is a regular CD or DVD with a tiny brush attached to its playing side. It is meant to remove the dust and dirt from the lens.
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Why be careful? If you are considering trying this, your drive already doesn't work. What could you possibly do - make it blow up? Sure, maybe you could break it worse, but non-functional is non-functional, so what difference does it make if you do? :-)
Jun 26, 2013 I just breath on the lens. VERY carefully and I have a loft experience cleaning camera lenses. A q-tip and breath worked for me with a dvd lens when I couldn't get a brush lens cleaner to work. For a lens cleaning solution I recommend the type that is intended for anti-reflection coated glasses. Shop for dvd lens cleaner at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up.
This post will show you how to make a CD lens cleaner for your CD Player, or dvd player. My in-dash car cd player has been having a really difficult time reading CD’s lately. I figured it was all the dust accumulating on the lens, as the playing is intermittent and random. This problem happened suddenly on my MacBook pro: when I insert a CD/DVD, it tries to read it for a few seconds (the motor of the DVD drive is working) and then it stops, and ejects the DVD. I have read in many forums that this is a dead condition for DVD drive, and should be replaced. But some others also suggested the lens might require cleaning.
You answer your own question: if someone isn't careful while using this cleaning method, they could break something in the optical drive and REALLY make the drive useless. If they're careful, they can sometimes make the drive work again instead of making it unfixable at all (at least not fixable in a practical sense).
Holy Cow! My drive had not played DVDs for some time now. Compressed air didn't help. Just now it spit out a DVD, did one swipe with an eyeglass cloth, reinserted AND I'M WATCHING A MOVIE!
It is obviously a risky thing to do, but it was worth a try before buying a replacement drive at $100 for a very old laptop (2006 MBP).
Thanks!
I had found this hint elsewhere (can't remember where) quite some time ago and it has served me well. Sadly, my SuperDriver eventually stopped reading disks altogether so I replaced it. But this hint definately made the drive usable for a few years after I first noticed the problem.
The DVD cleaner discs work well with dusty drives too. I have a Macbook pro that was in same situation. I put in the DVD cleaner and it started working again. The DVD cleaner disc actually has little bristles right on the discs surface that brush the lens as it searches the disc. But in a pinch I can see how this might work.
Thank you for the idea. I actually managed to clean my 1.5 year broken SuperDrive in early 2009 MacBookPro with glasses cleaning cloth and a business card ;)
Nice to know, but I prefer to open up the drive and clean it this way. Of course it’s a little bit more work, because you have to open your Mac, but you can directly clean the lens this way without fear of destroying the drive. Here’s a good example: http://muzso.hu/2008/08/17/how-to-clean-the-lens-of-a-slot-loading-optical-drive-a-macbook-pros-superdrive
I did this... I cleaned the lens using alcohol. Unfortunately it didn't helped at all. DVD's are still working but not CD's... Those superdrives are really a piece of junk. Mine stopped working after one year.
I did this and everything worked fine afterwards. Before the cleaning it would neither read nor burn CDs and DVDs.
Worked first time. Many thanks.
Holy crap it worked. My mini would burn CDs under Lion and Mountain Lion, but then not recognize them. This trick is brilliant.
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