Just found this thread, **Never ever clean the lens with alcohol!** ever. most optical drive lenses are made of Polycarbonate these days and cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol will cause it to yellow and even crack. Use an *alcohol free* CD wipe wrapped around a Q-tip or use *alcohol free* lens cleaning fluid available from any opticians. If cleaning the lens *and disks* is no help make sure your disks are the same region as your cube, if they are then you are looking at a physical hardware problem. This can be as simple as a cable that's been jarred loose or as major as a dead drive/drive controller so where you go from here is down to whether you are confident enough to take you're cube apart or not? If you are re-post this to the premium forum, if not you need to check and see if your cube is still in warranty or not, it's not likely to be but this will depend where you are in the world, when you bought it and where you bought it from. Alternatively this may be a good excuse to buy a Nintendo Wii as the Wii will happily play your cube games and support your cube controllers/GBA connect cables/cube memory cards. The only Gamecube device the Wii will not support is the Gameboy player.
Items-q tip, alchohal
take the q tip and dip it in the alcahol, then very gently tap the wet side of the q tip on the laser lens. then dry it off for a little bit. it worked for me
Lic a dic
Clean eye with alcahol very gently or it could cause a crack in the lens then leave to dry for 10-15 mins then check if dry and try again hope this helps. :)
Open the lid and clean the lens with a qutip dipped in a bit of alcohol, be very gentle because you can crack it Then let dry, if the problem still persist then you will have to adjust the lens.
Open lid and clean eye with alcohol and let dry and try again
SOURCE: gamecube
try this
1. use a clean q-tip
2. put windex on one end
3. gently rub the wet end of the q-tip in a circular motion on the laser lens.
then use the other end and do the same as the wet end
4. pop in a game cube disc and it should work.
if it does not work check the disc and see if it is scratched.
if it is use warm water and mild soap, rub in and rinse. after use a tissue or some thing soft and wipe from inside strate out.
SOURCE: isnt reading disk
Check that the Disk Laser does not have debris on it or has not been knocked loose. If you have looked at those options. Then you may have to send your GameCube to Nintendo so that they can repair it for you. If it's under warranty it's free other wise Nintendo will charge you 50.00 to fix it . Another option for you may be to try and find an used console online. I have seen them for about 40-100 bucks. I hope this helps.
SOURCE: The game disk could not be read.
It sounds like the disc reader is dirty, it's the little clear circle right under where a disc would go, closest to the back of the unit.
To clean, open disc cover, locate the disc reader, use a dry soft towel or some toilet paper and gently wipe it off, sometimes even a little dust can cause a problem. This should do the trick. If it doesn't, then either the disc is scratched or the Game Cube has something wrong with it.
hope this helps!
SOURCE: The gamecube turns on but won't read the disk.
Troubleshooting - Multiple Discs
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my gamecube always says can not read disk check booklet for more instructions.
Taken it apart, cleaned the lens over and over!!!
Cannot read disk - but does spin and trys to read it. Tried cleaning the disks, - no help; tried cleaning the lens with 91% alcohol; - no luck. I don't see any sign of light coming out of the laser - but I only tried to indirectly look to see if I detected reflected light; - (although I now realize I should have tried to do this in a totally dark place - where I might detect the faintest reflection of light.)
Originally I cleaned the lens lightly with (maybe?) a dry or slightly alcoholically enhanced q-tip, and it worked for a few games - then the trick never worked again.
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