Hello everyone. I fired up my cube for the first time in years and the optical drive doesn't work. :( Not unexpected since these are things are so flaky, but still depressing.
Are there any docs floating around that describe how to get into the drive and give it a cleaning? Has anyone here restored one?
Since it has always had a filter and the fan never ran backwards it is probably the laser, but it might just be dirty. It still loads and ejects disks fine, but causes a hang if loaded while booting and a kernel panic if a disk is inserted while running.
Since it is hard to find these drives now (possible at all?) it seems worth a try at cleaning before junking it.
Thanks!
Thank you. I will give it a try and hope for the best. This MO drive was never used much so hopefully the laser hasn't fizzled out. I don't suppose there is a way to look for any error codes it may be giving?
Quote from: "Bioheath"Thank you. I will give it a try and hope for the best. This MO drive was never used much so hopefully the laser hasn't fizzled out. I don't suppose there is a way to look for any error codes it may be giving?
Some of the drives experience the spin-up-spin-down behavior when they get dirty inside. I remember reading on Usenet some years ago that it might be caused by a delicate metal positioning band inside the drive that gets dusty. Here's a link to the post that describes the problem and cleaning procedure.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.next.sysadmin/browse_thread/thread/db35d42f3cc101d7/e6692b5f92ecd60b?lnk=gst&q=mo+spin+up+spin+down&rnum=1#e6692b5f92ecd60b