Forcing a Drive to Eject

[drfsupercenter]

This has haunted me several times now, maybe there's an easier way.

Sometimes when I insert a DVD, my drive just flashes as if it's reading, indefinately. Eject doesn't work, and right clicking on the drive in My Computer crashes Explorer.

One time, I opened Nero Burning ROM, and used that eject, but the other times that was uneffective.

Now, I know of the manual eject, where you use a paperclip, but that still makes Windows think there is no disc.

Does anyone know a way to make Windows force the drive to eject?

[RFBurns]

Not that I am aware of. The reason why a drive would lock up and not respond to an outside program's eject command is because the drive control and logic circuits within the drive itself has locked up and was not a cause by the program attempting to control the drive with the eject comand.

The drive itself, just like the PC itself needing a reboot when it locks up, also needs a reboot of its logic and memory circuits.

This lock up condition is often caused by mis-reading the TOC of any disc or reading a TOC of any disc that is somehow corrupted.

Dirty discs can cause a drive to lock up as well. Especially when the dirt, smudge, scratch is right over the TOC tracks. The TOC is like the boot sector of your hard drive, telling the drive what kind of disc it is, and what is on it and where. If this data is read with corruption caused by dirt, smudge, scratch or incorrectly written TOC, the drive goes "huh?" and then just sits there in a dumb state until either you use the little pin-hole eject lever or do a hard power down and reboot of the whole system.

And the reason why Windows cannot control the drive or begin to read data from another disc in a locked up drive after using the pin-hole eject lever is because the circuits that send data to the PC via the ribbon cable is also locked up. Thus the drive cannot see any commands from the PC, and the PC cannot see any data from other discs until a hard reboot is done.

[drfsupercenter]

So why would a Nero eject work once?

And it's different discs, I am starting to think my drive is failing... I wonder if Samsung has lifetime warranties?

[blutach]

It's indeed possible that your drive is fcuked. Does it read and write OK?

Regards

[Chewy]

check your cable(40 pin), I had a drive I was testing outside the computer
do the same thing(thanks rfburns for the explaination) my nec 3550 that won't die

might be time to plan on replacing that old 552 anyway

[drfsupercenter]

I am totally broke however, LOL. I know my dad is getting me a 50 pack of Verbatim DVD+R's for Christmas however

And it writes fine, another problem, this happened with my old DVD-ROM drive before it broke, I call it "stuck button". I hit the eject button and nothing happens, I have to press it 4-5 times sometimes. What happens is it makes a noise like the motor is trying to eject it but it's stuck. Dunno.

And every time I restart, it can read the disc fine, it hasn't been unable to read a disc yet.

check your cable(40 pin), I had a drive I was testing outside the computer

Check how, like putting another one in its place?

do the same thing(thanks rfburns for the explaination) my nec 3550 that won't die

Do what?


BTW, know of any cheap DVD burners that are good? This Samsung works but according to sites it's not the best... I want one of those "totally supported by everything and doesn't have to use lame workarounds to bitset" types.

[Chewy]

I had a loose ribbon cable and my drive was doing the same thing, just unplug and replug, worth a try.

[drfsupercenter]

Is the ribbon cable what makes it eject too?

[Chewy]

I didn't think so until I read what RF wrote and saw it with my own eyes

[drfsupercenter]

OK.

Don't know why this occurs, but one time I didn't feel like restarting due to some important stuff running in the background, so I reached inside the case and pulled the power cord on the drive, figuring it would say "device removed" or whatever. To my surprise, it froze all of Windows, including the cursor. So I had to do a manual reset.

[jamoskeag3]

In Dvd Decrypter, under Tools > Drive, there is an Eject command.
But maybe it does not work under the conditions you are describing?

[drfsupercenter]

OK, both DVD Decrypter and ImgBurn froze. I pulled the drive out, re-plugged it in. Same problem. In fact it happened twice. The only remedy I see for those problem discs is to put it in while Windows is booting up so it can't spend hours reading it.