OT: DVD burner/drive fading?

[Dave Labrecque]

It seems like my 5 year-old Sony DVD burner/reader has become more and more problematic over the last couple years. It's been slower and slower to recognize a new cd or dvd. The last couple of days, it even stopped reading disks at all.

It also seems to want to disappear when I plug an external HDD into it's firewire chain, regardless of whether the HDD is "before" or "after" the dvd/cd drive.

Could the disk recognition issue be as simple as a dirty laser lens? I've never cleaned it. Never on any cd or dvd drive, ever, in fact. Anyone ever clean their laser lenses?

And how about the drive disappearing act? Any thoughts?

Is this thing maybe just giving up the ghost? :confused:

[AcousticGlue]

After many many writes I have had them start failing making pops in audio or blips in DVD. I have also cleaned my DVD writer with cleaner kit and appeared to help. So unsure if this may help or not but is cheap, good option to try. I also used to have a bunch of Philips DVD+R fail at one point and then later after updating software to newer, magicly started working again. So was it the software, cleaner or what? Unsure.

[Dave Labrecque]

After many many writes I have had them start failing making pops in audio or blips in DVD. I have also cleaned my DVD writer with cleaner kit and appeared to help. So unsure if this may help or not but is cheap, good option to try. I also used to have a bunch of Philips DVD+R fail at one point and then later after updating software to newer, magicly started working again. So was it the software, cleaner or what? Unsure.

I love that Voodoo you do. ;)

[AcousticGlue]

Cause the night I was born the moon turned a fire red! :)

[Bud Johnson]

Get a room!:rolleyes:

[Carl G.]

Dave,
My plextor was acting up, giving indications of cabling problems. I cleaned, repluged, blew compressed air on inside of unit, and checked DMA status (which was knocked down for possibly a cabling reason).

After it all seemed to work again.... I had lots of clicks on a new batch of CD's burnt at 48x.... then it dawned on me they were not among the 'recommended' CD's for the Plextor (Memorex).. so I simply used the power option to burn stronger and slower (4x)... and the junk CDs recorded great.

So:
1. Check mechanical stuff (Cabling, dust inside unit... etc)
2. Try a diagnoistic on the unit (Plextor Tools works great for me)
3. Burn with 'approved/recommended' CDRs
4. Update Firmware & Software if needed
5. Then... if needed, buy a new unit :)

[Dave Labrecque]

Dave,
My plextor was acting up, giving indications of cabling problems. I cleaned, repluged, blew compressed air on inside of unit, and checked DMA status (which was knocked down for possibly a cabling reason).

After it all seemed to work again.... I had lots of clicks on a new batch of CD's burnt at 48x.... then it dawned on me they were not among the 'recommended' CD's for the Plextor (Memorex).. so I simply used the power option to burn stronger and slower (4x)... and the junk CDs recorded great.

So:
1. Check mechanical stuff (Cabling, dust inside unit... etc)
2. Try a diagnoistic on the unit (Plextor Tools works great for me)
3. Burn with 'approved/recommended' CDRs
4. Update Firmware & Software if needed
5. Then... if needed, buy a new unit :)

Thanks, Carl. I guess it could be any number of things, eh?