Trouble with burned CD media on Acer 8943G

I've been noticing lately that when I insert a burned CD into the drive that it shows up as blank, even though I know there's data on the discs. This seems to happen with both audio and data CDs, although burned DVDs and Blu Ray (almost exclusively data files) discs appear to be working fine.

I've also recently been having trouble burning CDs, and I've had to resort to using an external drive to burn the last few that I've made.

I very rarely use/make CD discs so this really hasn't been an issue but I've been wondering if it's the brand of CD media that could be giving me these problems. I've just been using the standard Staples in-house brand and they've never given me trouble in the past but maybe they just don't work well with this particular drive?

If anyone has any advice or insight it would be most appreciated!

 

I would say the first thing to do is to clean the lens on the drive. Use a cotton bud with the cotton teased out a little so it's soft and very very gently clean the lens. Moisten the bud ever so slightly with either a CD lens cleaning fluid or just warm water. Do not use anything else.

Also as a technician I would never use/recommend lens cleaning discs but I suppose many will say they have worked OK.

 

Laptop optical drives as a whole are notoriously sub-par with respect to their desktop counterparts.

Do you know the make and model number of the optical drive itself? That would probably help in diagnosing the issue.

 

Thanks, I'll give cleaning it a shot. My thought is that this isn't the problem simply because I so very rarely use the drive. However, since it doesn't cost anything to try I'll see if it makes a difference.

Going into Device Manager gives me this: HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CT21N

 

Have you tried a different brand of CD's to check if it is the staples brand causing issues.

 

Not yet, as there hasn't really been any compelling reason to. As I said, I very rarely use CD media - once in a while for data discs that don't need a full DVD, and occasionally someone asks me to make some audio CDs for them. Since this pack is almost finished I was probably going to order another brand when I restock; maybe Verbatim as I've had good results with their DVD and Blu Ray discs. Looks like I'll just have to place an order earlier than I expected if nothing else seems to fix the issue.

 

I'm taking back what I said - I just got a chance to try cleaning the lens and that seems to have fixed the problem!

Since wiping the lens down, I haven't had any trouble with the driver recognizing burnt CD media, either data or audio. I've tried multiple discs and all of them worked fine. I even tried burning an audio CD (which was giving me trouble yesterday), and that came off without a flaw.

I had my doubts since, as I said, I don't use the drive that much and DVD and Blu Ray media didn't seem to have the same issue but at some point I must have wiped up against the lens and gotten some oil or dust on it, and if laptop drives are as finicky as JLebowski suggested that must have just been enough to cause the problem.

Thanks again to everyone for all your help!