DVD loader

[mrjimbo]

I have a Coby DVD-915 DVD player. It has worked fine for the last 2 years. Now it doesn't even recognize ANY disc (DVD, CD, MP3s, picture disc). All it says is "bad disc."

If I open it up and observe what's going on and give the disc a good spin, it will play the DVD movie for a little while (about 20 minutes). Then, it just freaks out. I noticed the laser went beyond the radius of the disc. It was trying to read the edge of the DVD where it is clear, and the motor stopped rotating. I tried to spin the disc and get the motor going again, but it never who turn on. When I ejected the DVD and put it back in, the laser trys to read, but the DVD motor doesn't spin. It just ends up saying "bad disc"

Has this happened to any one else? Is there a good replacement for the DVD loader (it's a Shinwa SHD-2502N)? Or is something else wrong with my DVD player? Anything else I could try?

[redwudz]

Though it may be possible to replace the drive, it would likely be much more work than you would want to go through. If the drive itself is a standard DVD ROM, you might succeed. Or the problem may be elsewhere in the unit and you may just be wasting time and money. It's apparently a DVD player with amplifier and speakers. I see it lists for about $150US, if that is the correct model.

There are advantages to using a separate DVD Player, and surround sound amplifier. If one unit goes out, you don't need to replace it all. But they do take up more space, if that's a consideration.

JMO, but I would go shopping and see what is available before I would spend time trying to repair a electronic unit. This seems to be the 'disposable' age and not many electronic units are made to be repairable anymore.

And welcome to our forums.

[mrjimbo]

Thank you for your reply! And thank you for the welcome. This forum seems like a wealth of information from very technical-savvy people.

Question... how do I know if it is a standard DVD Rom drive? I've had thoughts of taking my DVD player out of my computer and see if I can match up any of the cable inside the Coby DVD player. But what I see inside the COby does not look like an internal DVD rom player that slides into a computer tower.

I have been thinking about buying just a receiver, but I've never shopped for one. Thus, I don't know what specific characteristics I should be looking for in a reasonably-priced (bang-for-your-buck) receiver system. I bought the Coby DVD theater system for $80 brand-new at AAFES (military store) on the day after Thanksgiving in 2004. I was unsettled about the Coby brand name, because I have never heard of it before. But I went ahead and spent the money anyway. Overall, it's a very nice system. But this sudden "bad disc" really agitates me. I would rather see it go up in smoke or catch on fire, then I know for sure I can't fix it for cheap. But right now, I'm in the researching mode to find out how difficult (and how expensive) it is to fix elusive electronic problems such as this.