IMac disk drive not recognising discs

Hi everyone,
I have a late 2009 iMac (21.5in 3.06Ghz) which is out of warentee. Recently, the disk drive has began not recognising disks, mainly CD's, while it still burns to CD-R's and plays most DVD's. I have reset the SMC and completed all other Apple troubleshooting steps with no luck. I phoned a repair specialist who told me that replacing it would be very expensive (£100-£200 I can't remember exactly) for what it is. I really do not want to pay this.
Does anyone have any other ideas, or has anyone suffered similar problems and managed to fix it? All help would be appreciated... easy points here!
Regards,
Nathan

Suggestions...
Make sure that you don't insert CDs with stuck-on labels. The internal tolerances are tight.
If the drive proves to be in need of repair or replacement, it may be more cost effective to buy an external USB-connected drive.

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IMac disk drive not recognising discs

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