Dead Drive

My DVD burner died this morning. It was literally working fine, then bang! Bye Bye.

When I eject the tray it stops mid way, I have to finish opening and closing with my hand, and when I pop a DVD in nothing happens, as nothing is there.

The warranty has gone so is it time to simple throw it into the bin and get a new one?

Yep, time for a new one.

Go here. They start at £25.

Heh, for the price of a drive these days? Just go grab a new one :)

See if you can't get the Starforce people to replace it. :o>

Funny, my last DVD drive went while i was trying to remove starforce.

Re: Starforce... Kinda like, "If I can't have this drive ... NOBODY CAN!"

I'd try different cables before relacing it. Could be a defective cable. Maybe the drive is, for some reason, not getting enough power.

I think its had it, but.....

Plug the drive into a different power cable (no ide attached) and see if the eject still does the same. If so, dont waste anymore time, bin it and get a new one :)

It seems to have magically started working, but the drive still routinely fails to open and close, so I guess I'll carry on using it till it totally cocks up. At least it doesn't corrupt the disk once the drive is in ok.

I didn't realise that new drives were so cheap, at least I can get a new one easily when this finally packs in. Although the one I have is external, but internal would probably be better. (Won't be so stupidly slow to burn disks)

The new one you buy will probably fit into your existing external enclosure, unless the enclosure has been deliberately manufactured to not allow it. Every external drive I've seen has been a standard IDE model plugged into an IDE->USB adapter.

*pointless update*

My DVD drive is totally screwed now, the tray is totally stuck shut and even after taking it apart I can't get it to open.

Hey ho, at least I got 2 months extra usage out of it when I thought it was screwed. :)

But... by going that extra 2 months after you knew it was hosed, didn't you open yourself up to the possibility of getting some valuable DVD stuck inside?

If you are willing to get the screwdriver out, You can always get a valuable disc out of a drive.

Well done ENAY

It was a blank DVD I was burning too, (it failed mid way) So I'm in no hurry to get it out. The Drive is already in pieces, failing short of using a hammer, that drive is not coming open.

2 months of extra usage was a risk I was willing to take.