Cleaning the Optical Drive
Edited Monday, April 06 2009
This web-page is part of a larger site
giving examples of how to install Windows+Ubuntu Linux operating
systems 'dual boot' in a computer. Illustrated Dual Boot HomePage
This
web page is about what happened when my Ubuntu installation
failed due to a dirty lens in the optical drive.
This
is to illustrate how I cleaned mine and solved the problem, and avoided
the need to go buy a new CD/DVD drive and saved myself some money.
fig28
Oh No! :(
The installation was aborted by the installer due to a problem.
It was 60% of the way through too.
I'll have to try again.
I have seen this error message once before, it was a while ago, and it
turned out to be the CD/DVD drive lense needed cleaning.
This
sort of thing doesn't happen very often, fortunately, but things do go
wrong every once and a while, so I might as well make it part of the
show rather than covering it up and pretending everything is always
perfect every time.
...so I tried again and the same thing happened, I got this error
message again right at 60%.
:(
fig29
fig29
So I rebooted into my existing Gutsy Gibbon install and ran some tests
to try to see if I can find out what's going wrong.
I installed smartmontools and checked the hard disk, but it seems to be
okay.
Then
I ran an optical drive cleaning CD, that should have cleaned it if it's
anywheres near as good as it's claimed to be in the sales spiel.
Then I rebooted the Ubuntu Live CD and ran the installer
again.
and,
.... it stopped at 60%
again with the same error message. :(
Apparently,
the CD/DVD lens cleaning CD wasn't good enough or I'm not using it
properly, it didn't seem to do anything last time I tried it either.
fig30
'Open your mouth and say 'Ahh'.... 'Let me see your tonsils'.
I
think I can see something shiny in there that looks like an optical
lense and I should be able to reach it with a cotton bud (Q-Tip).
So
I tried cleaning the 'lense' with a cotton bud dipped in metho
(denatured alcohol).
I
don't really want to have to take the CD/DVD drive out and take it
apart to clean the lense unless there's absolutely no other choice.
I rebooted the Ubuntu Live CD and ran the installer
again.
Guess what?
.... it stopped at 60% again with the same error message. :(
Okay, this is serious. This means war!
fig31
It
was easy getting the CD/DVD drive out of the computer, I didn't even
need a screwdriver, this little baby has a handle you can twist to
unlock the optical drive or drives if there are two of them, and then
they just slide right out like drawers. Cool! :)
fig32
Getting the optical drive apart might be a little tricky for most
people.
They are relatively
'child proof'.
The
trick is to look for a small hole in the front, a little over 1mm in
diameter.
You
should be able to poke a thin metal rod, (such as a straightened paper
clip), through that hole 20mm or so to press on a lever which
disengages the CD/DVD drive's gears.
Then you can open the tray
manually, just by prying on the front of it and then pulling gently
when you have it open enough to get a grip on it.
Avoid using too much
force or you might break something.
Either that or make sure you leave the CD/DVD tray open before turning
off the machine.
Once
the tray is open, the plastic facing behind it can be removed by
pressing on the plastic tabs and pulling it forwards.
Then it's just a
matter of taking out a few screws and looking for the
sticker that says something like 'warranty void if seal removed'.
That's a sure giveaway of where to go for. Do exactly the opposite and
go for the seal!
After that it's just a matter of holding in the
little plastic clips and pulling the metal cover off the plastic
molding, and you're in.
So there's the optical lense. It's
definitely not designed for easy cleaning, I would never have been
able to reach that from the outside with a cotton bud (Q-Tip). It's
behind the spindle.
Why
can't they make a little metal trap door on top or a hole covered with
something so you can open it and reach the optical lense for servicing?
The shiny thing I cleaned earlier that I thought was the optical lense
was only the head of a screw.
fig33
Cleaning the optical lense.
This one is concave, so naturally it gathers dirt particles.
Most computers tend to suck dust in through the drives because the
power supply and case fans in most PCs blow air out from the case,
creating a
relative vacuum inside the box. The result is they suck air, and dust
with it, through
every crack or hole from the outside world, including through the
CD/DVD drive and floppy disk drives.
I rebooted the Ubuntu Live CD and ran the installer
again.
Guess what?
.... it stopped at 60% again with the same error message. :(
GAH!
Okay, well, I have days like this.
I decided to take a closer look at the underside of the CD.
It
doesn't look dirty to me, it's a brand new CD-RW. Well, it does have a
few small traces of dust on it and holding it at the right angle to the
light I can just see some radial streaks of something on it. Nothing
much worth mentioning but I guess it won't hurt to give it a wipe with
a soft cloth dipped in metho.
So I did that, wiping from center to outside in straight lines, not
round in circles.
Then, to make sure, I went to my other computer in another room and
md5summed the downloaded .iso file again to make sure.
It was okay.
Then I burned it to disk again, erasing what was on there in case the
dirt might have stopped it being written properly.
This time after I booted the installation CD I also took the precaution
of running
the 'Check CD for defects' option before beginning another install.
Usually I do that first every time before I begin any install,
but
today I thought I'd skip it. Hmmm, I sure wasted a lot of time by
skipping that.
The CD passed the test this time, I wonder if it would have earlier?
Alright,
back to installing again, I had to go through the installation again
from the beginning, and this time things worked out, and I was able to install Ubuntu.
fig 34
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