Well, last night I was playing DVD movie using my 3 years-old NEC 3540A burner. Suddenly, i heard some noises coming from the driver, something like 'crick' 'crick' 'crick'. So i ejected the tray and insert it back. After that, it cant read disc anymore!!! I was like cause I think I haven't use it to burn more than 100+ discs and it fails me.

Today further inspection i found out that when i put in disc, the disc is not rotate at all. So i assumed that might be the rotator not working or maybe ran out of lubricant. I opened the casing and started to ripping them apart. To my surprise, i found tat the ribbon that connect the lens module to the main board was plugged out!! I connected it back and voila!!! My driver resurrected!!!

what surprised me most is that how the ribbon can loosen out from the connector as it is something like clipping on to the ribbon. Just like how you wear your belt, tuck it in and clip it. And I tried tat even if the clip is not clipped onto the ribbon, the ribbon can still sit tightly there. So i wondering is it manufacture defect, or something purposely done to shorten its life span?

Most of the people when having malfunctioning hardware wont bother to check thoroughly and straight throw it away. I almost did that last night, and I even hunting round trading corner to get myself another DVD burner. But luckily i opened it up to inspect it. Now I have a fully working driver and i think it loads faster too comparing to last time i think. ha...

So lesson learnt today, always try to fix before u throw.

Thanks for reading

wow....you are so lucky

Only when the warranty is no longer apply to the product. By removing the chassis of the optical drive will tamper the warranty. The 50/50 chances you've just took out of curiosity and experimentalism will or will not fix the drive itself.

There can be similar symptoms but multiple causes to the malfunction. You've just did some contribution, educationally, by providing one of it. Just don't use this as a presumption for all problem.

FYI, I dismantled HDD as well to see the internal working, not that I can fix it!

haha... at least u give it a try before giving up on them... so u wont wondering whether it is still useable when u throwing it away... hehe... i just wanna to share what i did today, hoping tat maybe one day u facing the same situation and able to fix it on ur own... provided it is not any major problem

to kagaya, mind to share some pics of the internal of the HDD if u have? curious to see hehe...

u are a really luck to get repair it back

Ya..Look like it is manufacturing workmanship problem...The ribbon cable will not come out if clip properly..U r so lucky...

maybe it wasn't plugged in properly during the manufacturing process, and the connection survived 3 years before the vibration from the motor shake it off.. call yourself lucky..

so in short, it's safe to try to fix your hardware before you throw it away if there's no more warranty left

yea... but i think if it is burnt chipset, then no chance to repair anymore...

Not just the ribbon. U can also retune the lens when it starts to haf problems reading. Most DVD lenses haf 2 pots inside. If u know what ur doing, it just takes about 30 minutes or even less to retune it. I do it for all my DVD lenses like consoles, DVD players n stuff when they start to skip. If u send to sevice centre will cost a bomb jsut to turn 2 pots inside around.

any guides on how to do that ianho?

Re-tune the laser power??

Well, u guys better google a bit to find out how to do it for ur specific devices. I dont wanna be held responsible for any damages u inflict on the lasers or even urself.

you guys could also google for video to turn you broken DVD burner into a pocket laser that can burn things.

This post has been edited by mypetridish: Oct 8 2007, 01:46 PM

Belly good tutorial.

Y from the picture i cant see the disc rotater motor??
Did u disamble it?

ya... i took it of... hehe...
hmmm... i dun get wat the mod saying mind to guide us through the mist?

Look under ur laser unit. There r 2 pots(plastic thing with screw head) there. U can use them to recalibrate the lens so it reads better. Over time it goes off so u need to tune it back. U can test this by playing DVD movies. When ur DVD is skipping, it shows it's time to retune it. What u then need is 1 original DVD as a base. Dont use pirated DVDs for tuning coz the quality is so bad. If u tune it to read a pirated disk properly it may not read the other discs. Tune it to read an original copy n it shud be good for all discs after that.

ohh... got it thanks alot mod!!! will try it next time when it is skipping^^

check this out :
http://www.felesmagus.com/pages/lasers-howto.html