Problem with my DVD drive

[guitardan]

Ok, a bit of a weird one.
A couple of days ago, the power in my house went out while I was burning a disc (although the actual burning hadn't started yet) Now the disc is stuck in the drive and it won't eject. If I press the button the light comes on for a while and that's it. Also if I shutdown the computer, when it comes back on it doesn't recognise the drive is connected. I have 2 DVD drives and this is the master. Is there a way to get the disc out without breaking the drive? Thanks.

[hech54]

There is usually a small pin-hole somewhere on the front of the drive to release the tray manually. A paper clip works well in that hole.

WOW.....I can't spell or type today...

[guitardan]

Thanks for that, I got the disc out!
But the tray still doesn't eject or close by pressing the button even though the light comes on. Have I blown something, is the drive dead?

Any help appreciated.

[OneSickPup]

I'm assuming this is a PC with some flavor of Windows. Go to System-Hardware-Device Manager and delete the ide controller (probably the secondary ide). Then reboot and see if it picks it back up. Worth a try anyways.

[bevills1]

Check the power connection to the drive. If it won't eject by pressing the button with good power connection, there's likely a problem within the drive.

[TBoneit]

You could try opening the tray and looking to see if the little belt that makes the tray open and close is off or broken. It will look like a small rubber band and in fact I've used proper size rubber bands as a fix when the belt breaks. It usually sits towards the center of the drive in front. Sometimes it isn't a belt it is a set of reduction gears instead.

[Ai Haibara]

Can you eject the drive using software methods, rather than the button on the drive's front panel?

[Grain]

Some player software such as PowerDVD have eject buttons, as well as ImgBurn and DVDDecrypter.

[guitardan]

Thanks for suggestions. The rubber band is in place, and no software methods open the tray. I'm pretty sure the power connection is ok (the light is still on ) but I will check that later. Tried disabling the IDE but it knocked out both dvd drives so I didn't really want to delete anything in case it messed up both for good.
Thing is I'm sure the drive is broken because when I opened it via the pinhole method and put a disc in it didn't recognise it was there. But according to my pc the device is working properly. Could it be the driver or something?

[Ai Haibara]

I'm probably wrong, but I think Windows just queries the device on powerup and if it's there and 'responding,' it'll believe everything's fine, regardless of whether or not the drive will actually read a disc correctly.

It does indeed sound like it's time to replace the drive.

[ViRaL1]

With DL drives under $30, I wouldn't put too much time and effort into it, unless you're just looking to tool around with something.

[Skith]

Tried disabling the IDE but it knocked out both dvd drives so I didn't really want to delete anything in case it messed up both for good.

Disabling the IDE controller won't help. If you just disable it, of course your drives on that controller won't work, because it's disabled! You need to remove the IDE controller from device manager and reboot, windows will then automatically reinstall it.

First you might also want to check the IDE cable for for damage/loose connections. If you can, try the drive in another PC, that may be the best way to tell if the drive is broken.

[edit: you don't even have to mount the drive, just attach the ide and power cables and let the drive sit outside the case of the second pc to test it.]

[guitardan]

Well as long as it will definitley reinstall it I'll give that a go. By the way if something does go wrong with that would system restore bring back the IDE controller?

[Skith]

Yes, it wouldn't hurt to make a manual restore point before hand.