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DVD drive

10 years ago

My Dell Inspiron, Windows 7, has a DVD drive HL-DT-ST DVD + - RW GH50N B103 (ATA). Is original to the computer. No problems with that drive until today. The drive has seen considerable use. It will not open the tray. Unresponsive to the button on the face beside the drawer front.
At COMPUTER, Drives, the drive shows up but does not respond to any command. EJECT at that site responds with "error".
Is this drive toast? If you suggest replacement, any specific suggestions?
There is a disc in the drive, apparently not finalized and I fear if I shut down the computer, it may not reboot properly due to the trapped DVD.

Comments (6)

DA_Mccoy
10 years ago
Did you try the old paperclip trick?

Unfold a large paper clip and pass it through the small hole on the drive door. Push against the resistance. Drive should open.

DA
bus_driver
Original Author
10 years ago
I am grateful for the suggestion. This one is behind a door that hinges down at the bottom. Opening the door with a knife tip finds a barely visible hole at the extreme bottom. The paper clip resulted in a loud buzzing that continued for several seconds, then stopped and no more response to the paper clip. The tray did not open.
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Mike, I have an Inspiron 1545 - is this what you mean? Let me know if you need more info. I would still like to download the driver for my laptop, but how do I do that? I do consider myself "adventerous", but not when it comes to computers, haha. owbist: thanks so much for the info, but like I told Mike, I don't feel comfortable when working on the hardware in computers. This morning I'm NOT able to burn a CD, but right before that I was able to play a movie. I don't know what is going on. Now I'm sure I'm not able to watch a movie either. So, how do I "download" this driver file. I see it, and it is actually in my download folder, but when I try to download it, it says there are no files to download. When it says download, it says "save file", not RUN, like I want it too. Any suggestions on this? Thanks! I appreciate all the advice.
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bus_driver
Original Author
10 years ago
It is working again. Probably will never know what happened to cause the problem. The computer is on a UPS, so there was no interruption of power-- and no power outage from the utility in that time frame.
This morning, I had to log in again, so I knew that Windows had updated and rebooted during the night. Pushed the button and the drive opened. Removed partially burned DVD-R. Inserted blank DVD-R and burned it successfully.
DA_Mccoy
10 years ago
The reboot most likely took care of it.

DA
bus_driver
Original Author
10 years ago
The resolution was short -lived. Problem happened again and the noise after the paper clip insertion persisted until the computer is shut down. During the shutdown process, the DVD drive ran ever faster-- until I feared for my safety. I unplugged the computer. The drive opened after reboot.
The information about the drive is in my original post. Looks as if the (ATA) drive is an obsolete bird and only used ones are available. Not to my liking. As best I can tell, my computer was built 4/14/2010-- not so long ago from my perspective. Obsolete already?
So I need a new DVD drive. Please suggest a good one, compatible with my computer.

This post was edited by bus_driver on Wed, Aug 14, 13 at 20:10
owbist
10 years ago
Take a look here to give you some idea of what is available. Any known brand is good, don't think I have ever had a CD/DVD player go bad on me.

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