2 CD Drives Down This Week - Suggestions?

keto

Computer #1 - JustLink 40 X 12 X 48 - Insert disk, green light comes on, CD spins, then the green light goes into 'flashing' mode, steady flashes. Drive is recognized in bios but in WinXP, opening the drive letter opens up the folder but nothing in there. Cables appear to be good. Dead reading head? or????

Computer #2 - cheap Mercury 48 X 12 X 48 - daughter was playing a game on one of those 'cereal box' CD's, heard a 'pop', game stopped responding, drive would not open. I went downstairs and used a bent paper clip to open the drive bay. Hundreds of bits of shattered CD :banghead: Took the drive out and emptied out all the pieces I could (literally) shake loose, no more rattling and so assumed I got it all out. Drive back into computer. Recognized in bios, however, the drive won't stop opening and closing in a steady cycle. And, in doing so, it's hogging system resources. Put a CD in the drive but that doesn't stop it from opening and closing Any suggestions?

GRRRRRR @ losing 2 drives in 3 days. Any possible solutions I should be trying?

Spinner

keto wrote:

Computer #1 - JustLink 40 X 12 X 48 - Insert disk, green light comes on, CD spins, then the green light goes into 'flashing' mode, steady flashes. Drive is recognized in bios but in WinXP, opening the drive letter opens up the folder but nothing in there. Cables appear to be good. Dead reading head? or????

Computer #2 - cheap Mercury 48 X 12 X 48 - daughter was playing a game on one of those 'cereal box' CD's, heard a 'pop', game stopped responding, drive would not open. I went downstairs and used a bent paper clip to open the drive bay. Hundreds of bits of shattered CD :banghead: Took the drive out and emptied out all the pieces I could (literally) shake loose, no more rattling and so assumed I got it all out. Drive back into computer. Recognized in bios, however, the drive won't stop opening and closing in a steady cycle. And, in doing so, it's hogging system resources. Put a CD in the drive but that doesn't stop it from opening and closing Any suggestions?

GRRRRRR @ losing 2 drives in 3 days. Any possible solutions I should be trying?

I don't know man, apart from bad luck, the only thing I can think of that would have any chance of causing those things to happen would be a dying PSU. But on both PC's?

Any power power spikes noticed in your house recently?

I'm just guessing. I mean if it was a power problem of some sort, your optical drives certainly shouldn't be the first thing to go.

profdlp

No ideas for the first one. (Other than you may have caught my notoriously bad luck with optical drives.)

The drive that had the shattered disc sounds like there must still be a piece or two stuck in there jamming the opening switch mechanism. If it isn't that, maybe the tray rails got off-track, keeping it from closing all the way. Most drives have a little cam somewhere in the linkage, the position of which determines whether the drive considers the door to be shut all the way. It's almost like the timing on your car - if one part gets a little ahead (or behind) where it's supposed to be in the whole sequence it goes into spasm.

I wish I could explain it better. If you open it up I'm sure you'll see what I mean.

Good luck.

keto

Recharged camera batteries, this is what I saw when I opened the drive door.

Thx, Prof, I get what you mean.

No power spikes hereabouts.

Straight_Man

The JustLink might have DUSTY read head, not a dead one. Try a laser lense cleaning CD in that drive, up to three cleaning cycles. Also, since the JustLink is a burner, make sure it has the right burning software running and that that is not corrupt, if burner software gets stuck on in process trees, drive with data or audio disk might not get a change recognized, or burner might clear the TOC on a data CD (stick the data CD on another box, see if data is read in that box) before Windows is restarted, if not, the JustLink might be toast or very corrupt burning software present or drive not recognized right in Windows due to someone sticking burning software not compatible with drive-- that has happened a lot to me, with clients, one symptom of bad software or wrong software or corrupt software is a drive that can only play Audio CDs and will do nothing with data CDs at all if it is burning capable. Blinking light looks like the CD bruner is trying to read TOC, and cannot due to dirty lense or a TOC getting wiped on a data CD. Both have happened to me and my clients-- though trying to read a burned coaster of a CD can do the endless rhythmic read light flashing thing, Audio CDs do have TOCs for track files.

The other one, might have tiny piece of CD stuck in opening gears or cams or in TRACK just before the closed switch. thing knows door is not all the way closed, hits stop trigger on a leaf switch. If stil;l open, look at track itself, especially if the drive door only closes almost all the way but not all teh way, adn look for piece of CD occlluding the disk media presence sensor (which can be an optiacl sense, no ligh beam, disk present, light beam, no disk present, and if stuck on could trigger that beaahvior of opening and closing a lot).

profdlp

One other thing, assuming you make any progress at all: don't forget that WinXP will turn off DMA if it deems the drive flaky. PITA.

bothered

I had a similar thing with a HDD, it was detected in the BIOS but only showed an empty folder in windows explorer. prof directed me to 'test disk' and that fixed it. I don't know if it'll work with an optical drive but I don't see why not.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html
Give it a whirl.
I also had a CD explode in a drive, I didn't even bother trying to open it, I just relaced it, it was a cheap drive though.