Dead CD writer?

[Gubs]

My CD writer (a 2-year old Aopen CRW1632, 16x10x32x) appears to have passed away, but before I go and buy a new one, I wanted to check in case anyone here had any bright ideas to save it

Yesterday I decided to start making inroads on the stack of cheap blank CDs I was given for free two or three years ago. I loaded up Nero as usual, did some simulations to find a suitable write speed for them, and only 4x worked. So I wrote one at 4x and got a write error halfway through. Another one, again at 4x, got a write error at about 5% done. So far I haven't lost anything except my free CDs, so no biggie.

So, I go back to using the last of my stack of unbranded silver-silver CDs. They've always worked fine at 8x, but today I get a medium speed error. Later, after a reboot and making sure nothing else is running, I try again with a different CD from the same stack and get a power calibration error.

Then I popped in a 48x-rated branded CD which have always worked fine at 16x (the fastest my writer will do). When I go to the burn tab in Nero, I can't select a speed, and the bottom of the window says "Waiting for the drive to become ready..." and never seems to do anything. Windows XP's own writing feature claims there isn't a blank CD in the drive. The drive light was blinking on and off regularly a couple of times a second.

I've since tried an audio CD, a burnt data CD and a pressed data CD in the drive and it doesn't detect any of them.

So should I be buying a new drive, or is there anything else I could try?

[Mr Meltdown]

1. Remove drive from PC. (with the CD tray sticking out).

2. Undo remove the 4 screws holding the case on the drive.

3. Press in the lugs that hold the facia on and move it out the way (that's why the tray needed to be open).

4. Depending on where the laser head is, you may need to remove the complete drive units inards away from the outer metal casing, a bit of wiggling will do it.

5. Get 1 x cotton bud (ear bud) and some alchohol or white spirit and wet the end of the bud with it, shake off excess and then clean the laser head (little clear plastic bead on wobbly mount) gently with it. Just a quick twirl of the bud wil do.

Reassemble and that's that.

If it's still dead, then it's knackered.

CHeers,

MM

[joshwa]

We've had a few (maybe about 3/4) AOpen CDRW's at work, and at least 2 have broken.

[Gubs]

Thanks, I'll try that.

Could it really have been the cheapo CDs that caused this, or is it just a nasty coincidence?

[Mr Meltdown]

I've found that the laser heads need cleaning about once every year after the 1st year. If there's any DIY or stuff making dust or fluff then the drives tend to stop working straight after that and just need to have the laser head cleaned again.

CHeers,

MM

[SilentDeath]

could try increasing the laser voltage, there should be a very tiny screw/pot there if u take the lid off...ive done it for a PS2 (not a cdrw) couldnt get dvd working again even at max but cd worked fine after. shouldnt burn holes thru ur disks but will slightly shortern the lasers life.

[Stoo]

TBH it'll be a lot less hassle to just go and buy a new one, they're only £30 odd nowadays anyway..

[[amd]oclocker]

Also dont forget about flashing the drive, it might help as the firmware may have become corrupt.