>Is there such as thing as cleaning a CD drive? I have been having more problems with my CD drive (when trying to record CDs) lately. Would I be better off buying commercial software? (I use Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 that was preinstalled on the notebook). I buy Memorex blank CDs. Should I change the brand of the blank CDs?

What I usually do is blow it - a can of compressed air costs about $5. It takes some careful dismantling, of course, and you may need to power down the machine with the CD drive open. Some models can't be opened otherwise.

You may apply a drop of pure alcohol to the lens, and wait until it evaporates - don't blow.

Generally, the lifespan of a CD/DVD drive (the way I use it - a lot) is 2-3 years, speaking from experience. My Creative CDRW is approaching its upper limit now, and the cleanup didn't help any. I figure the wear of the mechanism is causing it to lose precision. It can read any old CDs, and the ones it recently burned, but not the ones it burned between 2 and 16 months ago, and it's having problems recognizing blank CDs as well. Sometimes I have to insert the same blank six times until it's accepted.