How to fix a faulty CDR

I just though I would post this in the group incase it is of any
help to anyone else.

Anyway my computer CDR player had been faulty for some time,
so I thought I would have a pop at fixing it. It had worked intermittantly
in the past but it had completely given up for so long I can not remember
the last time it worked.

Basically I just took it out and opened it up, had a twiddle with the slider
and then tried play a CD whilst it was 'opened'. This involved screwing
back on the top plate back on or else the CD would probably have
taken off into orbit. ( the top plate is the plate which goes over the CD
and
holds it down in a central position ).
Anyway I popped an audio CD in and gave it a go and surprise surprise
success!! ( I just happened to have a audio CD handy which I knew
'was good', other wise I would have tried a data one first).
Anyway it played OK, but tended to skip a lot, expecially on the first
track which it barely played. ( I had also oiled the slider by now but that
didn't improve things much, I also oiled the 'door slider' just in case).

Anyway the upshot of it all is that when I completely reassembled the drive
with everthing screwed down properly it worked perfectly on audio and
data disks!!

So it does seem like the mechanical assembley of the drive can make
a difference, when you might like me be thinking the read head is
dirty or whatever. When I had it opened up I could observe any vibration
and see how smoothly the disk was spinning, adjusting the screws on the
'cover plate' seemed to make a difference to how smooth it ran,
although it ran much better when I had completely re assembled it,
which probably reduced vibration etc....

Incidently the drive was a replacement (under guarantee) for an earlier
drive which failed, and I suspect that it was it self a fixed 'return'
as it had some pencil writing on the 'top plate'.

I had previously taken it apart before (to clean the head) when it
had became faulty and it started to work OK again, I suspect
it was the taking apart and refitting which fixed it on that occasion
too rather than the cleaning of the head.

So if your drives stops working try taking it apart and refitting it!!!.