Toyota map DVD can't be read.

Indeed...

Toyota car radio/map.

I appreciate all the suggestions to my open-ended question. Buying a new GPS unit is a last resort**. Mostly I'm trying to fix the one I have in the dashboard.

One poster on the web thinks that having a map DVD in one's car for years damages the DVD. Do you think that's true? I park outside and it goes from 10F in the winter to 97 in the summer, but usually under

1. The car is white and the top is tan, but it does get several degrees hotter in the car than outside. I think I bougbt the DVD new 4 yars ago, even though it was made in 2008.

Maybe I could have made a copy when I got it but it's too late for that now. :-(

A mechanical system in a car for reading data (or music) in the XXI century is an amazing idea. It is bound to fail sooner or later.

Why is it too late? Is the DVD stuck inside the unit somehow? If not, remove it, take it to your computer and attempt to create an image from it. Keep an eye on the read speed during the operation, but more importantly, check the log at the end. If the disc was unreadable, the image creation will fail and you'll have your answer, but if the read speed drops dramatically at one or more places or the log file shows repeated attempts to read certain sections, then you know the disc is on its last legs. If the image creation completes successfully and the read speed stays relatively constant, the disc is fine and the problem is with the Nav unit.

One option I haven't seen mentioned is to replace the in-dash unit with an aftermarket unit. They've long ago moved away from DVD-based maps so the new units are much more reliable. You'd also get USB input, Bluetooth, SiriusXM, and more. Crutchfield.com is a decent place to explore and compare units that are guaranteed to fit and be direct replacements.

I don't think I can see a scenario where I would buy used tires. I guess it would have to be some kind of emergency and that was all that's available, but that seems unlikely.

I was thinking that, if the current problem is that age or heat had damaged the DVD already. But last night I went out and tried it somemore and the GPS works, it just keeps flashing that message ever 3 or 4 minutes, but in between it does keep track of where I am and what direction I'm going. In fact that clock I post about that changed time was actually the arrow showing which direction the car was pointed.

So I will copy the DVD.

I ordered a DVD cleaning disk. They don't sell them at Target, and they don't have any in the store at Walmart, and even Bestbuy's closest in-store one is in Annapolis, 40 miles away. That's the reason I've been dubious about how well they work. But Amazon sell8 or 10 different models all with quite a few 4 and 5 ratings. So we will see.

It's also possible that becausea this is the Map DVD, with dedicated software, that last time I did this, it didn't spin nearly as much as it would have. So even if I have to turn the car on and off over and over, I'll spin it for 5 or 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds it might have been if it didn't work right last time.

Good to know.

There were 3 videos about broken Nav units, 2 of them about toyotas, but one was about feeding the disk and and out. In another he cleaned the head with a Q-tip and compressed air. (There was a rubber faceplate that pulled off starting at one side, and the opening was much bigger after that, but I don't thimk my slot is big enough to get a q-tip in there. I only found one hit out of many that referred, vaguely, to Map DVDs.

One guy asked someone if he drove with the windows open, more dirt gets in. Heck I drive with the windows open 9 month a year and with the top down 7 months a year. If his question had any basis, I'm lucky it works at all.

I looked at Crutchfield but didn't look for direct replacments.

What I did find somewhere was a GPS with FM radio but no AM. How much more would it cost to include AM circuity? Can't they use the antennal that came with the car? There's not much AM radio here at all but still, I don't want to abandone it.

When I was in college, my 85 year old cousin gave me his car. My uncle said he'd get two tires for me. I didnt' know much, and all I knew was to say to him "Nn recaps". On the way to school only 20 miles along, the recap started flappoing off the tire. But since then I've bought a lot of used tires and never had a problem. Never a recap (do they still have recaps for passenger car tires?), they sell probably from cars that were wrecked. I bought two on Friday, price for my size had gone from

Not all DVDs have long lifetimes in the heat. The details of manufacturer count. Look for "archival"-level products.

Likely too late.

Joe Gwinn

It sounds like the vehicle is many years old; I would suspect the Laser in the DVD reader is the culprit..

The light output of the laser will reduce with time until there is inadequate SNR to read a DVD.

This is probably exacerbated by the high-temperatures that can occur in dashboard mounted players.

A dash mounted CD changer in one of my previous cars (Toyota Prius) was frequently failing to play CDs once the car was more than bout 5 years old. This would occur mainly after the car had been sitting in the sun in a parking lot all day. It would work ok in the morning.

kw

Joe Gwinn snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net Wrote in message:r

Iso buster may be able extract the DVD data if the disk cannot be copied. I use isobuster a few time to recover data, worth a try.

Cheers

...

Don't.

Just try to read, or better image, the thing on a computer.

Do you think the cleaning disk can make the situation worse?

Do you think the problem is in the DVD disk and not the laser sensor?

They can. I've heard of cases where the brushes on the disk knocked the lens assembly out of alignment, completely ruining the drive.

Also, if there's a layer of persistent dust or other gunk built up on the lens, then the brushes on the cleaning disk may abrade the lens surface when brushing it off. Scratches like this cannot be repaired, and once again you're likely to have a ruined drive if this happens.

Some forms of lens contamination simply can't be removed by a cleaning disk. For example, if anyone has ever smoked (tobacco or cannabis or ...) in your car, then there's a good chance that the lens has been coated with smoke particles and tar. Tobacco-smoke tar is extremely difficult to remove, even with proper cleaning fluids (the Consumer Reports magazine uses it as its exemplar of a "hard to remove" surface film). I have no reason to believe that cannabis tar is any less damaging to an optical drive.

Entirely possible.

Equally importantly: imaging the DVD in a computer drive is a non- destructive operation. It won't alter the DVD or drive in any way. If it works, great - burn yourself a copy on a high-quality DVD-R blank and see if it works in the car. If not, you haven't lost anything other than time.

Unfortunately, I think that other people have likely pointed you in the direction of the real cause: the DVD drive mechanism (likely the laser assembly) in the car is failing due to old age. If this is the case, replacement is the only real solution.

Frankly I'd suggest a different solution. A cheap, outdated cell-phone, running Android, with a navigation package like OSMand, will provide you with the same functionality (maybe better), with maps that are updated on a regular basis, and no moving-parts mechanism to fail. OSMand is free to try out (unlimited time of use, but only a fixed number of map downloads or updates available) and cheap to buy (possibly the best $5 I have ever spent).

Yes. The lenses could be scratched, a hair could be let loose..

It is a very simple test.

Well, I googled "mechanics on commercial airliners would find cracks in the skin of the airplane by looking for the resulting nicotine stains on the outside." and didn't find anything,

So I took out extra words and googled "airplane cracks in the skin nicotine stains on the outside." and found .. not an authority, just a guy, but...

Reply: No problem these days. Smoke from lithium battery fires will take its place.

---Didn't know what TIL means.... Today I learned./

Background news article from when smoking was banned.

I just meant that if it was already damaged from years in the car, it's too late, I guess.

Didn't even get that far. Imgburn says "Incompatible Medium".

And when I try to look at the DVD files with a file manager, I get "Insert a disc" and the drive door opens.

So I tried the laptop, and it said and did the same thing.

Both win10, fully updated.

Is there any point to looking for different software, that maybe can copy what imgburn won't copy? Or I just can't copy it?

I don't smoke anything and the only previous owner didn't leave hints behind that she smoked. :-)

I tried that. Imgburn says "Incompatible Medium".

And when I try to look at the DVD files with a file manager, I get "Insert a disc" and the drive door opens.

So I tried the laptop, and it said and did the same thing.

Is there a more powerful or less persnickity DVD copy program that might work?

I have a good phone with google maps, osmand, herewego, and the other one whose name I always forget, and the phone is on. But I also want something big and easy to read. In fact, though google maps is better in many ways, when driving, when I had a rental car, I did like OSMand. It seemed easier to read quickly without interfering with my driving. And I kept google maps on the phone for details if needed.

To me, that doesn't say 'bad disc', but rather 'incompatible disc', but of course I could be wrong. Imgburn is about as good as it gets, so if that's choking, it could be a non-standard (proprietary) disc format.

It'd be nice if you had a way of troubleshooting by substitution, but where are you going to find another nav unit or another disc?

It's easy to get another disc. The car is a 2005 and when I bought it in 2017 it had the original disc. I don't really care about recently built roads and streets -- there aren't that many of them -- but I also realized the excess supply of discs would run out, so I bought a 2008 version about 3 years ago. (2008 is the latest year Solaras were made. Although a 2009 disc for other Toyotas might work fine, I didn't want the risk. By 2010 or a little later, they were no longer making new DVDs because, as someone said, they use the Net, not DVDs, to supply data.)

Until 2 or 3 years ago I could still find anything I owned but now I can't guess where the 2005 DVD is. I paid about $15 for the 2008 and now it's $25 for another new one. on ebay. New, never used.

But the cleaning disc came yesterday after I asked about its risks and before anyone answered telling me there really are risks, and I used it. It appears to have worked. The instructions say it can take 20 - 30 minutes, but I was right, because it's a Map DVD, it can't actually run, and it spins only a couple minutes before it gives up. 3 or 4 minutes later, it tries again, I'm pretty sure, every 3 or 4 minutes. But I only put in about 20 minutes of my time, which would be 7 minutes or less of cleaning time, not 20 or 30 like they said.

It seemed to get better in stages and I've only started the radio 3 times since it worked completely, and today I sent away for an entire unit, off-brand, for $69, just in case I go on this trip and it fails while I'm away from home.

The cleaning disk seems to have worked, but I'm still disappointed in it. Instead of a full-size plastic jewel case, it came in a semi-hard, very thin jewel case that didn't have room for the brushes, even though they are short. The lid is crushing them. One brush is bent over 35^ or so, and 2/3 of the other is bent even more while 1/3 of it is bend in the opposite direction.

Since the brushes have been bent over since they were packed, I don't see how they will ever straighten out, and after 24 hours, they haven't made any noticeable change. Anyhow, most people want to use the disc as soon as they get it.

They have an email address just for complaints. Should I complain?

This is what I bought but it's the most promoted brand on Amazon. They have 4 versions in all.

BTW, in my defense, I had read a bunch of reviews for various brands and some complained it didn't work, but I don't remember any complaining that it made things worse.