When my DVD turns into a frisbee and how baby oil saved the day

Don't you just love it when your computer throws a wobbly?
Last night, my PR Planner DVD containing a massive media database and contact software started misbehaving. It caused the disc drive to spin round, but the DVD was not recognised. It then failed to obey the eject command. After a rather firm 3 seconds of holding the eject button the spinning stopped but it was 5 mins later before the disc drive opened, spitting out a spinning DVD, with a really nasty noise. Hm mm. Looks like a hardware problem. Mentally post a prayer of thanks upstairs to my foresight in wringing a free full 5-year extended warranty deal out of my local PC World branch manager.
Their technician had infinite patience and had me trying a number of discs in the drive which all behaved perfectly. But not the PR Planner DVD, which was collecting a few battle scars from its sudden conversion to Frisbee format.
Maybe it's a software problem, said the technician. So we un-installed it. Too late - I realised I'd need the licence code to re-install and I couldn't find it. And the PR Planner helpdesk was shut for the night.
As it turned out: no worries. The darn thing still wasn't being recognised so re-installing was not a current available option.
We tried it on another machine, where the DVD behaved perfectly, starting up the installation wizard, but - you're way ahead of me - there was the small matter of the licence code.
And that's when the technician started muttering about Brasso. Seemed a little rough to me, so he suggested mineral oil as an alternative: rubbed in the business side of the DVD, then carefully wiped off and polished with a specs cloth. Mineral oil is just posh for baby oil. I have some. I tried it. And lo: it worked!
OK, I had to wait until this morning for my code, but it's been running sweetly all day.
I've been using it to churn out press releases on a dynamic new client who run great (and expanding) networking events called Bacon, Eggs and Entrepreneurs. Coming to a town near you soon! They have 14 branches to date.
I expect all you IT support guys know the baby oil wheeze, but it's the first time in 20 years that anyone has suggested massaging my data.... but if it oils the wheels of business... (the rest is drowned out by the groans).