DVDRW stopped working

[Chewy]

The laser lens is probably dirty. It's an old drive.
OLD = anything over 1 year

[Chewy]

The Chewbaca method of cleaning a laser lens




find a way to keep the tray open with computer off
several options!

take a air compressor and jet nozzle and force 160psi
clean air into every available opening

reassemble/power up/test

I call this the LAZARUS method!

[Capt Moore]

Cleaned it with both compressed air and a lens cleaner disc, still won't recognize any dvds.

[Chewy]

Does it see any kind of disk, audio cd, data cd. installer cd, etc?

[Capt Moore]

It reads cd discs just fine data and audio, won't read dvd discs of any kind after I turned it off during an aborted dvdr burn... Windows will read dvds still using the other drive... I think it is a physical hardware problem, maybe...

[Chewy]

Let's backup for a while here,
you flashed the drive and it is installed as slave to a
dvd-rom?
I always flash out of safe mode and the burner is standalone master.
last suggestion, at least a new burner is cheap

[Capt Moore]

Here is what happened.
I started a burn using dvd decryptor
a decided to abort the burn during the lead in process
program would not stop writing to disc, had to power off the computer
dvdrw will not read any dvd discs in either windows or dvddecryptor

Then I tried some solutions:
Power up again from a power off condition
remove dvdrw from device manager and have windows redetect
reflash firmware with most current version (the same firmware was already on the drive)
clean dvdrw with compressed air and laser lens cleaner disc.

The reflash went fine, not a problem, I only did it because I though maybe somehow the firmware became corrupted. It was a last ditch effort, but it did flash sucessfully without errors, but it did not fix the problem..

[Chewy]

I just had a nec firmware(hacked) go corrupt and I did it by the book,
per manufacturers directions(nec-de) in safe mode as standalone master
on the secondary ide.
I reflashed with newest hacked firmware, again by the book, it's fine now,
burning full dvd's in ~7-8 minutes.
I blame it on gremlins or voltage surges. Actually there's a guy downunder(blu...)
with some mysterious powers(gone native on us), I should never have knocked his LG drive.

[Capt Moore]

Well, i disconnected the other drive, switched the cables, set the jumper, and reflashed again... again it said it was sucessful, powered down the computer and restarted. Nothing changed again, still won't read any dvds. Even reflashed a second time with the burner still in the master configuration, just in case, and still doesn't work...
Any other ideas other than the garbage bin for this drive?

[blutach]

It does sound like the laser is fcucked and can only read at CD focus.

They gotta die sometime, I guess. Sorry to hear.

As a final thought, have you read this FAQ?

Regards

[Capt Moore]

Looks like it is dead, the media didn't change or anything and it certainly could read a commercially produced dvdrom before... I got a new NEC ordered, should be here in a week (half the cost of buying one from best buy).

Just found out my brother's tivo hard drive died, the dvdrw might have done it out of sympathy....

[blutach]

Good luck with the new one Cap'n. You did check all your IDE cables right?

Regards

[Capt Moore]

yep when I was swapping drives around....

[blutach]

Well, time to get a spade and give it a proper burial, then.

Regards

[jm1647]

Looks like it is dead, the media didn't change or anything and it certainly could read a commercially produced dvdrom before... I got a new NEC ordered, should be here in a week (half the cost of buying one from best buy).

Just found out my brother's tivo hard drive died, the dvdrw might have done it out of sympathy....

Here is to hoping the 2500A served you well and you got a lot of use out of it before it passed on