How to clean DVD. Methods for cleaning laser drives and discs
It may happen that we bought a film, watched it and gave it to our friends or acquaintances to watch. Then, after returning the disc, it suddenly stopped being read.
What happened? We open the drive, carefully look at the disk and see with disappointment that scratches have appeared on it, which were not there before, but what is even more strange: it is somehow all dirty, smeared with something, covered in some kind of dried spots. How can he read to the poor? It's just that the child of friends acted carelessly with it: for example, he threw the disk face down on a dirty table, and, God forbid, put some object on top of it and moved it around the table.
In no case don't wipe the cd some napkins or rags - you can scratch (damage) the working surface of the disk even more ...
Well, with scratches, nothing can be done. If they are insignificant, then the disc will be read. But you can remove dirt from the disk by washing it in warm water with soap. Yes, like a regular plate, only with your hands, not with a rag or sponge.
We moisten with plain water and gently distribute the soapy solution over the surface with a soapy hand. Simply put, thoroughly wash with your hands until the dirty stains are completely removed.
Done, washed:
Then you can just shake it well and let it dry, but if the water is hard, after drying, traces of hardness salts may remain. For drying, we simply blot with a well-absorbing matter, for example, a terry towel:
It is advisable to gently blot, wipe (rub) the CD / DVD disc, it is not worth it. Any friction on the working surface of the disk is fraught with its scratching, what if a grain of sand remains in the matter? So it's safer to get wet:
And do not touch the work surface with your hands if possible:
Let the disk dry completely for a few tens of seconds and that's it. Disk ready to eat. Try it, it may happen that those discs that were not read before will be successfully read in your drive.
By the way, if most of the discs from your collection are not readable in a CD / DVD drive, then check it on another drive, let's say with friends or acquaintances. It may happen that it is time to change the drive due to the mechanical displacement of the reading head relative to the surface (they say that “the eye has gone astray”).
Although DVDs are becoming obsolete, they are still found on many computers and laptops. Many have a licensed Windows system stored on disk and require a DVD drive (although it can be installed from there). Therefore, I want to consider in this article how you can, using simple tools, clean the DVD drive in your computer or laptop.
I have been using the method described below for many years and it has proven to be very effective.
The reason why the DVD drive began to work poorly, not read discs or do it intermittently, most often is dust on the laser lens. Here we are going to clean it.
Required tools:
- Philips screwdriver (cross);
- A regular paperclip (it needs to be straightened);
- Cotton swab or stick.
Tools
How to clean your computer DVD drive
First, remove the DVD drive from the computer. This is not required on a laptop.
Turn it upside down and unscrew the 4 screws that secure the lid.
We unscrew the screws
Remove the lid very carefully and set aside. Our attention will be a board with electronic components.
Bottom of DVD-ROM
Now we put the drive so that it looks at us with its front panel. We insert our unbent paper clip into a small hole designed for emergency opening of the drive tray. Feel free to press on the paper clip until the tray comes out a little from its place.
We press here with a paper clip
We pull out the tray manually to about half its length. Now remove the front plastic panel. To do this, you can press a screwdriver on the side latches.
Side panel latches
Removing the panel
Now turn the drive upside down and carefully remove it from there.
We get DVD drive from the lid
Now you can see the very laser lens that needs to be cleaned. Consider it carefully. Most likely you will find small hairs or dust on it.
Do not try to remove dirt with your hands. There may be greasy stains that will be difficult to remove.
We take a cotton swab and lightly brush off the dirt from the lens. No need to polish the lens, just remove dust and hair.
Cleaning the lens with a cotton swab
As I wrote earlier in other articles, the biggest problem for a computer is dust. It is clogged wherever possible in such quantities that sometimes you are simply amazed. The DVD optical drive is no exception.
Dust, if the device is not cleaned, affects the operation of the drive tray, reduces the accuracy of the laser mechanism and affects the quality of the clamping mechanics. In general, a DVD drive should be cleaned at least once a year. Ideally, once every six months.
To clean and maintain your DVD drive, you will need lubricant, cotton swabs, and alcohol. After removing the DVD drive from the system unit, you need to remove its front panel. First of all, you need to pull out the drive tray. This is done with the help of any long and thin object (needles, paper clips, a piece of wire 3 cm long).
There is a small hole on the front panel of any DVD drive (item 2 on the bottom photo). Behind it (on the inside of the panel) is a mechanism for manually opening the tray. It is necessary to press this mechanism with a little effort through the hole and the tray will extend 1-2 centimeters, after which it can be pulled out manually to the end.
Next, remove the dust cover from the tray. To do this, turn the drive over and, bending the cover with your fingers, pull it down. On the cover, as a rule, there are two latches (item 1 on the bottom photo) and two guides on which the cover is held. It comes off without much effort.
Next, you need to drown the latches on the front panel. There are usually four (two on the bottom, two on the sides), or five (two on the sides, three on the bottom). After removing the front panel, the bolts (4 or 5 pieces) on the bottom cover of the DVD drive are unscrewed and the cover is removed.
Then you need to take the DVD drive by the top cover and shake it slightly. The plastic drive mechanism will fall out of the top cover (see photo below). After removing the covers, the optical disc tray itself is removed. It extends to the stop, then the latches located on the back of the tray at the corners are bent (see photo below) and the tray is removed.
All unnecessary parts have been removed from the DVD drive, you can start cleaning. The main body of the DVD drive has many notches, grooves and recesses. They must be thoroughly blown to remove accumulations of dust. Even a small amount of it at the back wall or in the grooves of the tray can cause the tray to stop opening (closing).
The tray is driven by a motor, which communicates with the mechanics with a rubber strap (belt). Remove the belt carefully so as not to stretch it. The mechanical operation of the drive tray depends on the condition of the belt. By the way, problems often arise with the tray after a long (more than two years) operation without maintenance. First, dust gets into the guides and the tray does not get into the extreme position because of this, and then the belt is stretched due to the fact that the drive mechanism cannot open the tray due to the incorrect position of the tray.
Following the belt, we remove the mechanics control board (1 or 2 latches). Also, be careful not to damage the motor control cable coming from the main board. On inexpensive models, the cables may well be fragile or poorly soldered. We remove dust from the mechanics with a soft brush or air from both sides (top and bottom). Ideally, it is advisable to go over the entire DVD drive first with a brush, and then blow it with air (for example, using a rubber bulb, which is sold in any pharmacy).
After all dust is removed from the drive housing, the rubber parts are degreased with alcohol and the old grease is removed from the guides (usually by the time of maintenance there is a mixture of fine dust and dirt with a small amount of remaining grease).
Finally, the movable rubbing mechanical parts are lubricated with a small (negligible) amount of grease just to form a film (no longer desirable). There should be no visible accumulation of grease.
The final touch is blowing (only with a rubber bulb) the lens of the laser mechanism (in no case should it be wiped) and the drive is assembled back.
If your dvd disc is not readable on a computer or dvd player, then most likely the electronic media just needs to be cleaned. There are several ways to remove traces of dirt that interfere with playback, all of which require extreme care.
Instruction
Instruction
- how to free a cd
For correct recording of discs, you need to use special programs. The most famous of them is called Nero, but, unfortunately, it is paid.
How to clean a dvd rw disc
There are also free options - CDBurnerXP, BurnAware and others. They are no worse, but you need to find such a program on the Internet, download it to your computer, then install it correctly and learn how to use it.
What are discs
Well, and, to everything else, disks can be conditionally divided into "full" and "empty". That is, those on which something is already recorded (movies, music, etc.) and those on which there is nothing.
Burning discs
Burning discs in Windows XP
Insert the RW disk into the drive.
And open the CD / DVD drive in it:
Burning Windows 7 discs
Copy them, that is, right-click on any of the selected files (folders) and in the list that appears, click on the "Copy" item.
Insert a blank disc into the drive.
How to erase a Windows 7 drive
How to clean a DVD disc
A mini-menu will appear on the screen, in which the program will offer to determine the working drive. There should be no problems with this, because, as a rule, in most cases you don’t have to choose: in computers and laptops, it is the only one if any external device is not connected to the equipment. Click the "Open Drive" button and insert a disc, then click "Erase Disc" and wait for the cleaning to finish.
Unfortunately, there are discs that cannot be cleaned.
But they can be overwritten! In any recording option, specify for the program the files that you want to fix to disk. Knowing how to burn songs to disc and movies will save you money.
Now you know how to clean the disk from unnecessary files.
How to clean a DVD disc
As you already understood from the article, Disk Studio is a convenient software for working with disks. You can quickly write absolutely any information to external media or overwrite old disks, filling them with new and useful data.
How to burn and erase a disc
In this lesson, we will learn how to write files and folders from a computer to an empty disk. We will also talk about what discs are, and how they differ from each other.
In the previous lessons, we learned how to copy files and folders. Using copying, you can write files to a computer, to a USB flash drive, rewrite from a phone or camera. But not on disk. If we try to write something to an empty disk in this way, it will still remain empty.
For proper recording of discs, you need to use special programs. The most famous of them is called Nero, but, unfortunately, it is paid. There are also free options - CDBurnerXP, BurnAware and others. They are no worse, but you need to find such a program on the Internet, download it to your computer, then install it correctly and learn how to use it.
All these gestures make sense if the user needs to write information to disks frequently. But there is another, easier way - without any programs.
It's good because it's versatile. That is, in this way you can burn files and folders with files to an empty disk without additional programs and settings, on almost any computer.
Among the shortcomings, it should be noted that on computers with Windows XP, in this way you can only write to a CD - you can’t burn it to DVD.
What are discs
Disks come in CDs and DVDs. Many people think that only movies are recorded on DVD, and everything else is on CD - music, documents, photos. Actually, it is not. They differ only in size.
A DVD contains four or even eight times more information than a CD. That is, if one film is placed on a CD, and even then it is not in very good quality, then four films and even more can be recorded on a DVD disc. Music, photos, documents, and other files and folders can be burned to either CD or DVD.
There are also R and RW discs. The difference between them is that information can be written to R only once, while information can be written to RW many times. Recorded, used, and then erased and recorded something else.
Well, and, to everything else, disks can be conditionally divided into "full" and "empty".
Tip 1: How to format if the disc is write-protected
That is, those on which something is already recorded (movies, music, etc.) and those on which there is nothing.
Burning discs
First you need to know which Windows version installed on the computer. To do this, open "Start", right-click on the inscription "Computer" (My Computer) and in the list that opens, click on the item "Properties".
A window will open in which it will be written which system is installed.
Burning discs in Windows XP
Select the files and folders you want to burn to a blank CD:
Copy them, that is, right-click on any of the selected files (folders) and in the list that appears, click on the "Copy" item.
Insert a blank disc into the drive.
Open the drive on your computer. To do this, open "My Computer":
And open the CD / DVD drive in it:
Right-click on an empty space and click on Paste.
The files and folders you copied will be pasted onto the disc. But that doesn't mean they signed up for it. To do this, you need to right-click on an empty space and select "Burn files to CD" from the list.
The CD Burner window will open. You can type a name for the disc in the CD Name field, but this is optional. Click the "Next" button and wait.
When the disc is written (the green bar fills up and disappears), a new window will open in which you need to click the "Finish" button.
Even if such a window does not appear, the disc is still written.
Most likely, he himself will move out of the computer. Thus, the computer reports that the recording was successful, and the disc can already be used.
How to clean up a disk in Windows XP
You can only clean a disk if it is reusable. To do this, it must be written RW. If the letter R is written on the disk, then it cannot be erased from it, it is disposable.
Insert the RW disk into the drive.
Open it on your computer. To do this, open "My Computer":
And open the CD / DVD drive in it:
Then right-click on an empty space (on a white field) and select "Erase this CD-RW" from the list.
A new window will open. Click on the "Next" button and wait until all information is erased. When this happens, a Done button will appear. Click on it. Everything, the disk is clean and you can write something to it again.
Burning Windows 7 discs
Select the files and folders you want to burn to disk:
Copy them, that is, right-click on any of the selected files (folders) and in the list that appears, click on the "Copy" item.
Insert a blank disc into the drive.
Open "Computer" (Start - Computer).
Open the CD/DVD drive. To do this, double-click on it with the left mouse button.
A small window will appear. You need to select the type of disc you are going to burn. Two types are offered - "Like USB flash drive" and "With CD/DVD player".
The first option is more convenient and modern: you will get a disk that is very similar to a USB flash drive - you can write files and folders by ordinary copying, and erase from it by simple deletion. But such discs may not open on some computers.
The second option - "With a CD / DVD player" - is classic, that is, the same as in Windows XP. It is suitable if you want to record music and plan to listen to it not only on a computer, but also on players (for example, in a car). This option is less convenient, but more reliable - a disc recorded in this mode will open on any computer.
Click on the type that suits you. Then click on the "Next" button.
If you selected As USB flash drive, you will be warned that you will have to wait while the disc is ready to be burned. By the way, sometimes you have to wait a long time - more than ten minutes. Click the "Yes" button.
When everything is ready, the window will disappear and a new small window will appear in which the computer will "offer" to open a folder to view files.
But even if such a window does not appear, it's okay, just open "Computer" again and open the "CD / DVD drive".
An empty folder will open. Right-click on an empty space and click on "Paste".
After some time, the previously copied files and folders will be added. That's it, the disc burning was successful!
If you have selected the With CD/DVD player type, a blank disc will open. Right-click on an empty space and click on Paste.
The files and folders you copied will be pasted onto the disc. But this does not mean that they have already signed up for it. In order for this to happen, you need to right-click on an empty space and select "Burn to disk" from the list.
A new window will appear. You can type a name for the disc in it, but this is optional. Press "Next".
Now we have to wait. When the disc is written (the green bar fills up and disappears), a new window will open in which you need to click the "Finish" button.
But even if such a window does not appear, the disc is still recorded.
It will most likely pop up on its own. Thus, the computer "tells" us that the recording was successful, and the disk can already be used.
How to erase a Windows 7 drive
We can erase from a disk only if it is reusable and is called RW. If the letter R is written on it, then the disk is disposable and cannot be erased from it.
Insert the disc into the drive and open it on your computer (Start - Computer - CD / DVD drive).
Try deleting the file or folder. To do this, right-click on the file (folder). A list will open. See if there is a "Delete" item in it. If there is, then delete the information through this item.
And if there is no such inscription, then right-click on an empty space (white field) and select "Erase disk" (or an item with a similar name) from the list.
How to clean a DVD disc
Burning files to disk is a proven way to keep important information in a safe place. True, there is one “but”: not always and everyone has a “blank disc” suitable for recording at hand. And if now you are faced with such a problem, do not rush to be upset ahead of time! After all, you can use absolutely any old working disk that you have available to write data.
"Disc Studio" is a multifunctional disc burning program that will help you fix the folders you need from your computer and individual files to any media or erase unnecessary information from already filled discs. Read the article and you will learn how to clean up the disk in this application.
Step #1. Download the program from the site
To get started, visit a special page on our website, where you need to download a program for burning discs to your computer. Once the download is complete, run the setup file and follow the instructions. Select the location where you want to place the program and wait until the archive is unpacked. After that, start working with the application by double-clicking on the software icon.
Step #2. Run the program and select the desired option
The main menu of Disk Studio will open in front of you, where you need to select and specify the operations that the program should perform. The application allows you to work with both CDs and DVDs. You can quickly figure out how to clean a DVD disc from old files, and then burn songs, videos or any other data to the chosen media. To delete information from a disc, click on the "Copy and Cleanup" tab and select "Erase Disc".
Step #3. Clean your disk of junk files
A mini-menu will appear on the screen, in which the program will offer to determine the working drive. There should be no problems with this, because, as a rule, in most cases you don’t have to choose: in computers and laptops, it is the only one if any external device is not connected to the equipment.
How to burn and erase a disc
Click the "Open Drive" button and insert a disc, then click "Erase Disc" and wait for the cleaning to finish.
Step number 4. Rewriting an old disk
Unfortunately, there are discs that cannot be cleaned. But they can be overwritten! In any recording option, specify for the program the files that you want to fix to disk. Knowing how to burn songs to disc and movies will save you money.
To overwrite an old disk, configure additional settings: speed, name to be given to the disk, if necessary, request its verification and turn off the PC after the recording is completed. Don't forget to insert the disc into the drive. When the program asks for confirmation of overwriting and deleting files, click Yes.
Now you know how to clean the disk from unnecessary files. As you already understood from the article, Disk Studio is a convenient software for working with disks. You can quickly write absolutely any information to external media or overwrite old disks, filling them with new and useful data.
How to Erase a DVD/CD RW Disc in Windows 7
To be able to overwrite data on a DVD, you must have a DVD burner (DVD+RW format) installed on your computer. In modern laptops and computers of the latest configuration, as a rule, such DVD-ROMs are already included in the equipment package.
There are two types of DVDs - rewritable (RW) and non-rewritable (R). In the first case, you can use the drive several times, deleting and writing new data to it again, in the second case, information can be written to the disk only once. In our case, we need a DVD RW. Before writing new information to a disk with data already on it, you must delete the old data (format the disk). This can be done with a special software, or by own means installed on the computer operating system.
How to delete information from a DVD+RW or CD+RW disc
If your computer is running Windows XP or earlier versions of the operating Windows systems, then it is best to use special programs to format DVDs. For example, Nero Start Smart, which is one of the most popular among PC users. It allows not only to clean the disk from old information, but also to write new data to it. The program is especially popular, because in addition to stable operation, it also has a very convenient and intuitive interface. 
You can download the Nero installation file for free on the Internet, and then install it on your PC by following the installer's instructions step by step. After that, it is best to restart your computer, then insert the desired disc into the DVD drive and launch Nero Start Smart using the desktop shortcut.
In the main menu of the program window that opens, find the "Advanced" function, click on it with the mouse button. In response, a dialog box will open in which you need to click on "Erase DVD", thereby activating the "Program Wizard". The wizard will display tips on the screen, using which you can clean the disk from unnecessary information. After the disk is successfully formatted, a notification will appear on the monitor screen.
Use Built-in Disk Cleanup Software
Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems have intuitive and stable built-in DVD formatting capabilities. After the system independently determines the disk installed in the drive, a dialog box will appear on the monitor screen in which you need to click on the “Burn files to disk” function. In the new window that opens, you need to select the name of the disk, then click on "Show formatting options" to set the options for future burning to the disk. If the new information will consist of files of the same type (for example, movies or music), then you need to select the Mastered option so that the disc can be read well by the equipment that plays these files in the future. To collect files of various types on one disk, it is better to choose LFS. After setting the desired parameter, click on the "Next" button. In response to this, the formatting process will automatically start, after which a corresponding message will appear on the monitor screen.
Useful video
Especially for you, we have prepared a video on how to clear data from a CD / DVD disk:
Each user during operation personal computer or laptop sooner or later begins to notice that his computer began to work much slower. There are many reasons for this, but the most common is the accumulation of system junk and unnecessary temporary files. In this article, we'll show you how to clear HDD from unnecessary programs and files.
For the cleaning hard drive we will need free utility, called CCleaner.
This program is the best in its class, moreover, many paid analogues cannot compete with CCleaner.
Download CCleaner for Windows
So, download the utility, go through the installation procedure and run the application.
At the very beginning, we will clean the hard drive of all unnecessary files, then we will fix registry errors, then we will remove everything from startup unnecessary programs and completely remove them.
Brutally Disk Cleanup
To clean the hard drive, we just need to click on the "Analyze" button.
In our case, 668 megabytes of system garbage were found, which is a rather modest result, since this computer is checked regularly. If the hard drive has not passed such a check for at least a month, then the amount of system garbage and temporary program files will be several gigabytes. In most cases, it is these files that are the reason for the slow operation of the computer. To get rid of these unnecessary files, you need to click on the "Clean" button and wait a few minutes until the program cleans up your hard drive.
In order to achieve even greater results, you need to eliminate all the errors in the system registry.
Cleaning the registry
To clean the registry, you need to open the "Registry" tab and click on the "Search for problems" button. Next, the process of searching for errors will start, which usually also lasts a few minutes. After the scan is completed, you will see a list of all the problems in your registry.
To fix all errors, click on the "Fix ..." button, after which the program will offer to save a backup copy of your system registry. To avoid problems, we advise you not to ignore this offer and save a copy on your computer's hard drive. Next, click on the "Fix marked" button and wait for the end of the error correction process.
Autoload management
Many programs are added to automatic startup during installation, which makes it possible for them to start immediately after the operating system boots. If a large number of programs accumulate in autorun, then Windows boot takes much longer than it could. Some of these programs are really needed, and many of them are wasting your computer's resources. To remove unnecessary programs from autorun, you need to select the "Service" tab, and then go to the "Startup" item.
Check out the list of available programs in startup, and disable all unnecessary software. To do this, click on the desired program and click on the "Turn off" button.
Attention! Do not disable programs that are located in system folders (System32, Windows, Drivers, and others). Disabling programs from these directories may adversely affect the stability of your computer.
Uninstalling programs
The presence of unnecessary software does not affect the performance of your computer in the strongest way, unless, of course, these programs are not included in startup. But these programs take up disk space that can be put to better use. To remove programs, you need to open the "Tools" tab again, then select "Uninstall programs".
Then select the program that you want to remove and click on the "Uninstall" button.
Thanks to these simple actions, we can significantly increase the performance of your computer. Also, the slow operation of the computer can be caused by severe fragmentation of the hard disk. To get rid of this problem, you need to defragment your hard drive.
