DVD Drive busted :(

[Gabriel013]

Hi guys, not posted in Helpline as it's not game related.


My DVD drive has stopped reading DVD's, the tray opens when I ask (mostly) then almost instantly closes on it's own. It makes a wierd clicking sound when I try to get it to read.


Any suggestions other than binning it? If not knocked my PC or anything to cause this problem. Will a Drive cleaner help maybe?


Thanks in advance,

Gabe.

[dillonthebunny]

yep, I suggest two things.. a disk cleaner, one that you can use in a ps2 as it will have longer brushes.. meaning it will clean better, and /or pressured can of air....


see how that goes, thats how i got mine working.

[Gabriel013]

I'm getting a c drive low warning and i want to transfer a lot of 'stuff' onto dvd's. I'm using cd's at the moment but the storage isn't up to scratch.

I'll look for a cleaner. Thanks for the tip. I'll also look at borrowing the pressure can from work.

[dillonthebunny]

a can of Air is one of mans greatest achivements imo.. so many uses from the serious to the fun...

as for the storage, dont you have a wee mem stick to hand?

[Gabriel013]

My HD is bigger than that I have many gigs of accumulated stuff to clear so I can add more stuff while I'm subscribed. I don't want to delete my DoW saved games.

[svosen]

Why not just buy an auxillary hard drive? They're really cheap anymore...

[brandon]

BUY A NEW 1. IT'S UR ONLY CHOICE! Mine did that 2 and so did my PS2. The problem is that after being used alot, it knocks the tray loose, so what U could do is have somebody take it apart and tighten the tray back again. I had to buy a new 1 because like a dumb-ass I did it myself. Don't make the mistakes I did. Glad I could help, if I helped at all.

[cAtDaFeLiX]

I suggest a external HD, I did that type of back up b4 (burning DVD-R/+R is hell if your looking at 160gb of data) and it takes a long time. I even got a disc read error from one of the burns (even after doing a disc check b4 it finished) so I was out 4gb of data.

Air can is good, but that C: problem might be DVD related (or not) An external drive solves alot of issues. I do a reg DVD burn backup of my data every so often so "all my eggs" are not in one basket.

[Dmitry M. (Lazer)]

Firstly, the lens is most-likely broken and a DVD/CD Drive cleaner won't help. Many new drives have a self-test device built-in to them by changing the pins. If you want to check out your manual and you can perform the self-test and it'll tell you if the lens is broken, if test comes out positive (working) then and only then will a CD/DVD Drive cleaner work. Based on what you've said it is most likely not fixable and you need to buy a new drive.

Also you should have a bigger Hard Drive or get a Slave Drive. You can also get an external drive like many said to do. I personally have a primary 500gb, Secondary (Slave) 250gb, External 250gb, External 1.5 inch 15gb, 2gb Thumb Drive, and if you count my 2gb iPod Nano that's another 2gbs.

[Gabriel013]

Blinking 'eck, that's a lot of space Dmitry! I'll scout out a few cheap prices for DVD drives and external HD's. My PC is out of warranty now so I can pretty much do whatever I want with it.

I tried to play a normal DVD and it just didn't want to know. What ass. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

I'll try the test thing anyway but I'm pretty sure it's knackered.

Thanks for the advice