Disc Drives Malfunction?

[FantasyAcquiesce]

Hello,
I was trying to make a bootable CD because rufus kept giving me a bootmgr is missing error, regardless of the choices I made, then I realized that most of my computer's dvd drives are not working.
-My AIO HP PC
-An Asus Desktop
-A HP (2010) laptop
-Thinkpad R60
-Dell Latitude D600 (it might be Windows ME's fault that the DVD cannot be erased)

In the majority of my PC's (excluding a Dell Precision T3400), the DVD drives keep malfunctioning. Is there some sort of driver issue going on here? For example, my AIO HP PC used to burn CDs and DVDs just fine until a few months ago; the drive suddenly stopped reading discs; when I try to burn a CD, Windows ejects instead of read the input CD.

Do these drives have a tendency to break out of the blue or something? It's frustrating to find that I have no other solution to Rufus (tried older versions too) when a I get a missing bootmgr error.

[jaclaz]

They do have a tendency to stop working, particularly on desktops/tower, in my experience laptops (kept properly) are less prone to this, I personally attribute this to three main factors:

1. the drives (common desktops units) themselves are cheap (and as such they are cheaply made)
2. they are used less and less, and lubricants tend to stick up as they dry up 
3. very often a lot of air (and dust) is blown through them by the PC internal fan(s), which makes lubricant dry and hardened by dust ciontamination

Usually (on desktop units) all is needed is to disassemble and clean the inside accurately, particularly the lens, of course and in some cases cleaning the sliding parts and putting on them a tiny drop/bit of lubricant and move them manually is needed.

You'll need both a vacuum cleaner and some source of compressed air.

If you need some lubricant, you want to use Molykote EM-30L (which is a specific grease "safe" for plastic parts) for slides and gear teeths and sewing machine oil for metal rods and gear pins, if you cannot find (or afford) the Molycote (or even better "Superlube") any "white", silicon based grease would do, rule of the thumb i to use the least possible quantity of lubricant, (and that much is already too much, you should have used less ).

Of course it is well possible that the unit is simply defective/worn-out, but it costs very little to try and clean/lubricate them.

jaclaz

Edited November 24, 2019 by jaclaz

[jumper]

The head on my favorite laptop's internal CD drive will move inward, but not outward (or unpark?).  With the tray open, I have to manually pull it outward before setting each new disc in the tray.  Then it works again!

 

 

[UCyborg]

Approx. 2 years ago, I noticed the tray refusing to open. I only use that thing once in a blue moon, so I just left it back then. This summer, I finally poked into the designated hole to open it manually.

Now it opens normally most of the time, except the first time after turning on the PC, when it only opens after second press of the eject button.

The unit is almost 11 years old. As far as reading is concerned, that works.

[i430VX]

Probably worn belts. Probably not easy to source a replacement, but usually if you open (at your own risk, they can be complex to put back together) the drive, you can twist the belt so it forms a cross pattern, and that will provide extra tension.

Otherwise a hard hit while it is trying to eject usually convinces those drives to open.

However for jumper's laptop, sounds like something else, as those "Slimline" drives don't usually have belts...