Optical drives are very delicate organs or your computer. Just like eyes to your body you have to take extra care to preserve them for a long time. But our body has got a in-bulit system to recover from minor faults and hence a little carelessness can be reconstructed out. But that's not the case with Optical drives they are machines with nothing human, but loaded with in-human powers and potentials.
To protect them you have to take care of them. Here is how you can do that.
Optical drives include your CD drives and DVD drives. The best you can do to make them work longer is to use good media in them. Do not use poor quality cheap discs. If you are looking for back-up always buy good quality CD's like that of Moser Baer or so, that is guaranteed to last long. Also avoid using scratched CD's in your drives. Use the scratch covering solutions which are comercially available if the discs have to be used in any case.
Do not think that a little ketchup on your disc is ok for your drive. The optical head is a real delicate organ. Even a little dust can make its perfomance go down. If the lens gets covered with dust or dirt the speed of the drive will be affected. For example read speeds can go down from 40X to even 2X or 1X. In due course of time the drive will turn useless.
Use a blower to remove dirt from the discs before inserting it in to a drive. If you have got a drive which does not work, do not throw it away. Provided that the drive do not affect the disc physically, you can use the drive to clean your discs. All you have to do is to keep the drive connected to the PC, and insert the disc in to that drive first. Let the disc undergo some spins. Then take it out and insert it in to the working drive.
Optical drives must be cleaned regularly. Use the drive cleaner discs comercially available to clean your drives. Here too, remember to choose from quality brands. A sticth in time can really save nine. So clean your drives regularly.
Once you start experiencing problems with your drives, try cleaning it. If that doesnt works take it immediately to your local service station. If you do that in time , you might be saving a major service with a minor detailed clean.
Above all handle the drives affectionately. Do not use it in a weired manner. Be patient while working with your drives.
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