Cleaning the Lens in a ’90s Apple CD Drive

Cleaning the Lens in a ’90s Apple CD Drive

90s CD-ROM drives frequently struggle to read CDRs (home written discs). Sometimes this can be helped by using another brand of disc or writing the disc at a lower speed, but in the end, the best solution is often cleaning the drive’s laser lens with a cotton bud and IPA. These instructions will be approximately helpful for other brand drives, but the majority of 90s Apple SCSI CD-ROM drives are Matsushita drives of a very similar construction (some early ones were Sony and different – I find the caddy Sony drives tend to be better at reading CDRs anyway).

The actual drive in the following pictures is an IDE drive, but the construction is identical, specifically this drive is basically the same as the one in my Macintosh PowerPC 9600, but I’ve used the same process to clean drives in an 8500 and an 8600.

Matsushita CD Drive
Matsushita CD Drive
Side Bezel Latch
Side Bezel Latch
Top Bezel Latch 2
Top Bezel Latch 2
Front Bezel
Front Bezel
Homemade Drive Eject Tool
Homemade Drive Eject Tool
Ejecting the Tray
Ejecting the Tray
Tray Ejected 2
Tray Ejected 2
Release Right Bezel Catch
Release Right Bezel Catch
Release Bottom Bezel Catch
Release Bottom Bezel Catch
Release Left Bezel Catch
Release Left Bezel Catch
Bezel Released
Bezel Released
Ready to Remove Screws
Ready to Remove Screws
Lower Cover Removed
Lower Cover Removed
Latch 1 (Front Right)
Latch 1 (Front Right)
Release Latch by Pulling Away from Metal Tab
Release Latch by Pulling Away from Metal Tab
Latch 2 (Back Left)
Latch 2 (Back Left)
Disassembled Drive
Disassembled Drive

This is a more modern version – the older ones have a bit more stuff inside them, but the process is identical.

Lens Assembly
Lens Assembly

Don’t touch the lens!

Wipe with IPA
Wipe with IPA
Dry Dry a Little
Dry Dry a Little

Then reverse the instructions to reassemble. All the latches clip in easily when you put things back in space. If you’ve done it before the whole process is only a 10 minute job.

Good Luck.