Suggested treatment:Keep your workspace clean and avoid working in
excessively dusty or dirty places. If dust does enter the drive, use a can of
compressed air to blow dirt off the lens — aim the spray away from the inte-
rior of the laptop and be sure to keep the can upright and at least six inches
away from the lens to avoid contaminating the lens and motor with any of
the propellant used in the air sprayer. Check with the manufacturer of your
laptop for any special advice for cleaning the lens of the laser beam.A bad marriage ...................................................................................
Not all CDs and DVDs use the same design for their lasers and optics, and not
all recordable and rewriteable CDs and DVDs use the same chemical com-
pounds for their recordable layer. Although the most current drives are much
more flexible in their demands than earlier ones, you may run into situations
where a drive refuses to write to a particular design or brand, or is unable to
read data recorded by a different drive.Suggested treatment:Most manufacturers make recommendations of com-
patible brands or types of blank discs for recording. But you shouldn’t feel
that you must use only Sony brand discs with a Sony drive, just to use one
example. Run tests to find which brands and colors of discs work best in
your laptop as well as in any desktop machine you may want to play
recorded CDs or DVDs.158 Part III: Laying Hands on the Major Parts
Itchy & scratchy discs
Try not to scratch your CD or DVD collection. That
said, a small surface scratch may not mean the
end of the world or the end of your data. Let me
do some rough pluses and minuses: A DVD’s data
density is two to four times as much as that of a
CD, and therefore a DVD scratch is likely to
damage more data. However, DVDs set aside
about 10 times as much space for error detection
and correction, and so the problem may be fixed
automatically. If the DVD is being used to hold a
movie or audio, a serious scratch may result in amomentary loss of signal or a frozen frame, but
the show will go on.I am not recommending that you treat your CDs
or DVDs with disrespect. Try to store them in
their jewel cases or in lined envelopes. Keep
them out of the direct sun and off of radiators
and other sources of heat. But you can also be
assured that these modern discs are much
more resistant to damage and protective of con-
tent than were old vinyl records.