My CD-ROM has sporadically refused to recognize disks in it for a while
now. (Eg, trying to open in explorer gives "The device not ready", and
sometimes while using a game or installing software, suddenly requesting
to have the CD inserted. Ejecting and restarting the CD have always
resolved it.) Now it is a crisis; it won't read any CDs, with one
bizarre exception: I bought a "CD LASER LENS CLEANER" which appears to
be a CD with a bit of fluffy stuff glued to the bottom, and this CD
plays with no problems. Windows 95 sees it as a music CD. This doesn't
mean I can play any other music CDs, though.

CD-ROM is a Maverick 12X, system is a Gateway P90 running Win95A. The CD
is on the secondary controller as MSCD002, IRQ15. Device manager shows
no conflicts. I have DOS drivers loading on boot with no errors
reported. This has been working for two years now, so I had suspected it
might be a dirty lens or some other glob of dust in the drive. I have
done what I can with a flashlight and pipecleaner to clean dust bunnies
out, etc. Still no go. Cracked the case and reseated all the connectors,
too.

I had thought about removing the drive from the bay and shaking it, but
two things hold me back: 1)Maybe shaking isn't a good thing to do to it
and 2)Because of the way the case is configured, I have to remove the
floppy, hard drive, and power switch to get to the mounting screws. I
did two years ago when I put this drive in, but I'd as soon not if I can
avoid it (or if there's no reason to.)

Any and all suggestions will be deeply appreciated.

Shelley Sterling

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