I have had trouble with CD drives before and have found that many times they can be fixed by cleaning them.  Its relatively simple and shouldn’t cost you much for the supplies.

I recommend that you get a can of compressed air like “Dust Off” or something similar from Costco or Walmart, or an office supply store.  You want to use it to blow out the dust from the inside of the drive real well.  The thing about these cans of air though, is that there is liquid inside that you don’t want to come out, so never shake the can or tilt it to the side or upside down.  That’s very important, so try and remember, as well as practice spraying the air around in different places up and down and side-ways by bending the straw that attaches to the nozzle.  The straw is your best friend for getting just the air into tight hard-to-reach places.

Not all cd-drives are made the same, so it may be tricky to get the straw in or around the inside of the drive.  There are the kind that you just press the CD into a slot and it automatically grabs it and loads it.  For this kind, just insert the straw into the slot and try and move it all along the width of the slot as you spray.  There are also the kind where you must eject the tray in order to set the CD in it and then it loads the CD in the tray.  In order to get inside, you must eject the tray and remove any CD in it, then try and fit the straw into the open crevices in front of the drive where the tray came out.  Sometimes in order to get it to go in well you need to push the tray back in slightly (but don’t allow it to load all the way back into the drive), and then you should have room available to get the straw back inside.

There are other types of drives that load quite differently, but they aren’t popular anymore and shouldn’t need mentioning since its not likely you have one.

Another CD drive cleaning tip that can keep your drive running beautifully for years to come, is a CD Laser Lens Cleaner Disc.  You can find a lot of generic and name-brand cleaning discs at virtually any place that sells CD-Rs.  The process is fairly quick and its usually automatic.  Generally you load the disc (and sometimes squeeze a drop or two of cleaning solvent onto the brushes of the disc), and play it, listening to the instructions, and usually skip ahead to a particular track number.  Some are designed for the computer and may have a program that you must run to properly clean the lens, but they may not support your particular OS.

The best practice is to keep your CD/DVD drives cleaned regularly using these tips.  You may also want to keep the dust inside the computer housing vacuumed out, but always be careful and make sure you have grounded yourself.