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pc dvd drive problem

hey, I've got what appears to be the following, according to windows: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4082B

basically, its a dvd+rw drive.

anyway, the problem I'm having is that every so often, it simply won't read the disk thats inserted. sometimes it even sounds like the disk isn't spinning up at all. you put a cd in, the light on the front flashes for a second, and then it stops. nothing happens. but then other times, it works better than any drive I've had in the past.

I assume this could be a variety of problems, such as dirty laser, bad tray, misalignments.. but I figure I'd ask here first, before I go playing with things, like I said in my post about my monitor.. I'm no technician.

Once, it seemed to have completely stopped working. so I took it apart, thinking "well, I can't do any further damage to it." and I didn't see anything visibly wrong, so without touching a thing, I put it back together. it worked again. but then after about a week or so, it started acting up again.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Reply to
kronflux
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Open it up and play with it, it might be something easy, otherwise they're so cheap, just buy a new one and take the old one apart to play with the bits.

Reply to
James Sweet

Try a firmware upgrade, one LG drive I had acted funny and the upgrade cured it. If that doesn't help, replace it.

Reply to
Meat Plow

On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:08:45 -0800 (PST), kronflux put finger to keyboard and composed:

IIRC, here in Australia LG drives come with a 2-year or 3-year warranty.

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Reply to
Franc Zabkar

Just a guess here, but I'll wager opening it up would void any warranty. As other posters have noted, try upgrading the firmware. With intermittent issues, I'd also suspect cabling, both power and data. If you have another power plug from the supply, swap them around. Ditto with an empty connector on the ribbon cable, although PC makers seem to have realized that it's cheaper to give you no spares and make you buy a different cable if you want to add anything...

DAve S.

Reply to
Dave

Try the easy stuff first. If it is a belt driven tray, then the belt may well be getting marginal and starting to slip. In this case, the tray does the easy bit, and slides back in, but then the belt really comes under load, when it has to bring the deck up under the disc, to press it into the clamp. This is the time when it really slips, and the loading sequence does not quite complete, and the disc is not left free to rotate. If it starts acting up, open the tray, then close again,'helping' it along with some firm - but not silly - finger pressure. The extra inertia imparted is often enough to carry the loading sequence through to the end. May be way off-beam with your particular drive, but many computer ones are belt driven, and it is common for them to suffer symptoms like you describe, when the belt gets worn.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

at the very least, its something to look into, perhaps, if this is the problem, I can replace the belt or something. tinker a little bit and get it to function properly. I'll look into it! thanks for the info.

Reply to
kronflux

Reply to
ZACK

i had the same prob with my LG i updated the firmware, now it reads anything.

Reply to
ZACK

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