HP DVD drive problem

The Lightscribe DVD drive on my HP Pavillion DV5000z has worked fine
for months (although I've given it pretty heavy use, burning about 70
DVDs) . Then it developed a sudden problem, soaking up 100% of the
processor running under Windows XP SP2 and taking forever to read or
burn a DVD.

I tried cleaning the DVD drive with a cotton swab and lens cleaner
(new at this, though). This seemed to solve the problem of 100% CPU
usage, but the sound is skippy and has an echo when I play the DVD.
Perhaps the drive is running slow??

Did I not clean the drive properly? Did I misalign the mirror or leds
or something? Do I need to replace the drive (the part costs
$260!) ???

Thanks for any help / advice / insight :-)

Phillip