Superdrive not recognising DVD or CDs

my superdrive no longer recognises CDs or DVDs of any sort.
Hasn't been able to do this since Snow Leopard. Carried on into Lion.
Any ideas?

Hi Paula
Apparently different wavelengths are used to read DVDs and CDs. I found a lot of stuff out by reading other postings on this site, plus some extra bits from the response to this posting.
Meantime, I upgraded to 10.4.8 to no avail. Then a friend recommended booting in Safe Mode and lo and behold, the offending DVDs were read. Unfortunately, because this mode uses limited extensions, it wouldn't actually play those that were movies, but at least I could get some data from some. The DVDs also played when I booted in OS9.
They also recommended creating a new user in OSX, which I did but had the same problem. Which tends to make me believe there is some offending extension, rather than a cleaning issue - a bit of a nightmare to sort out!
May just opt for a new drive - reluctantly.
Cheers
Mrs Dynamic

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    Apparently different wavelengths are used to read DVDs and CDs. I found a lot of stuff out by reading other postings on this site, plus some extra bits from the response to this posting.
    Meantime, I upgraded to 10.4.8 to no avail. Then a friend recommended booting in Safe Mode and lo and behold, the offending DVDs were read. Unfortunately, because this mode uses limited extensions, it wouldn't actually play those that were movies, but at least I could get some data from some. The DVDs also played when I booted in OS9.
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    Cheers
    Mrs Dynamic

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