DVD-ROM drive door stays open

[Acidis]

I have a Toshiba DVD-ROM drive (sd-m1201) and at some point it stopped opening the drive door. When you pressed the eject button or used eject functionatily in Windows, it seemed to try to open it but it looked like it was locked or stuck.

I used a paper clip to force the drive door open through the emergency eject hole.

However, now the drive door will not stay closed. When I use eject button or push the drive door in, it will close and then re-open in about 3-5 seconds. Putting a CD in does not change anything.

Anyone has any ideas? Replacing the drive is the last thing I want to do.

 

[amphibiam]

Found this on the toshiba site, hope it helps.
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Turn computer power OFF by properly shutting down system.

Insert a solid bar (i.e. large paper clip) into Emergency Eject hole and push in. The DVD tray will open/eject

This procedure cannot be repeated without cycling the DVD-ROM’s (computer's) power.

After the media is removed and the loading tray is closed, the tray will not reopen without first turning the power ON/OFF.

 

[Acidis]

Well, thanks. However, my problem is that the door will not stay closed. I already used emergency eject hole to open my drive door.

It does not matter now though. I was twiddling with the drive and broke the eject mechanism. One of the wheels came off. I already bought DVD-RW drive to replace this Toshiba junk.

Now my question is, anyone knows how to dissasemble a drive like the one I have? I can take off a panel at the bottom and I see a couple of screws holding the circuit board. After unscrewing the screws I still cannot dissasemble it. Front panel seems to be holding the thing together and I can't remove it.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

The plastic front of the drive is normally just clipped onto the drive-chassis (may have a security-screw or 2). Gently bend the metal clamp/clip outward to remove the fromt-panel. You may see some more screws that hold the unit together.

Since it is shot anyway, just experiment a bit, you may learn from it for future problems.

 

[Acidis]

Well, some good news and some bad news.

The good news is the drive is working again. I decided to use a bit more force this time. Used a small flat screw driver to pry the front panel open. From then on I was able to remove couple other parts and see where the wheel came off from. Put the wheel back, played around with mechanical parts of the drive, put it back together, put it into computer and it started working.

Door opens and closes. Tested reading CD-ROM disc.

The bad news, my CD-RW drive is now broken. Completely unrelated to this problem it just stopped reading discs after I tried erasing CD-RW disc a day ago. Well, at least my DVD-RW is on the way now and can replace the broken drive.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

While messing about with the other drive, you may have unsettled the IDE-cable on your CD-RW. Check for it being properly seated (on the mobo as well). Replace the cable if you have another one (or "borrow" from another PC).
Also try connecting it to the other (e.g. middle) connector of that IDE-cable. Has been known to fix some problems.

 

[Liquidlen]

If what real told you does not work ,but windows still sees the CD-rw in Explorer.
Check for conflicts with any packet writing software you installed with the new drive. These programs do not like each other.