dvd rom no longer working (story of my life)

[laura]

have a gateway. all of the sudden the cd rom won't play cd's or burn. cleaned it. red light blinks but cd won't catch or something like that. no message appears. not at all computer savy and don't know the language of it. need to be told what to do like I'm a monkey.

[DIY Guy]

If you try a couple different CDs and none can be read, then the alignment of the reader is probably off. There is no fix for that. The only step to try is to blow a little compressed air into the open CD drawer to clear any dust that may be interfering. If that doesn't help, then replacement is probably required.

[denman]

Buy a DVD cleaner, basically it is a CD with some brushes on the bottom.
You run it and it sweeps the dust off the laser/lens.

If it is contaminted with anything other than dust, you will have to remove it from the computer, open it up and clean it with isopropyl alcohol.
I would also clean the slides, rails etc in the unit.

Give it a try and if still NG, it is probably toast
They are so cheap these days, it does not pay to have them fixed
You may want to check your warranty on it, may still be covered.