DVD Rom mechanical surgery... hand me the scalpel nurse!

My main rig doesn't have a dvd drive yet, but I just salvaged one from a dead rig the other day... I believe it is functioning, save for a slight mechanical issue I need help with in order to repair.

It seems there is something wrong with the mechanics of the drive - the tray extends only about half way, then halts.

So now I have a completely opened up DVD drive, with the circuitboard removed, and I see that the laser arm and tray movement is not coordinated correctly... It appears that the laser arm is completeing its motion, during which time the tray only travels about half of its complete distance. The result is that the laser arm is running into the bottom of the tray and jamming up the movement. This is a problem whether the drive is operating electronically or manually through the front pinhole release.

All belts appear in good condition. This is a standard generic removeable disk drive.

Never worked on a removeable disk drive before... Anyone have some pointers?

Could you put up some pics?

Will do when I get home in a day or two... For now, this is what the inside of the drive looks like basically:


Picture courtesy of OC.com

The part in the center of the pic with the laser attached, raises up to engage the disc when the drive is closed, and lowers when it ejects. That "laser arm" is bashing into the tray when it moves, preventing the tray's full range of motion.

BTW, I know a drive is cheap, but I just want to fix this if anyone has some advice.

Is it just the Lens part that it hitting the tray?

Just that assembly, the lens itself is not contacting the tray.

So the laser head is supposed to be going out all the way along with the tray?

hmm, i dont know, but you can do what i do in these cases open it up more (carefully) and check if everything is still in the right place and all... though i havent done DVD drives yet, it doesnt look that much different from a floppy drive

move it about and see why the laser arm is obstructing the tray...(i dont exactly understand what you mean with what you say)

good luck dont remove anything if you know you cant put it back in!

Okay, I will restate, seems I didn't phrase this well enough.

The tray moves horizontally - out and in.

The laser arm moves vertically - up and down.

When the tray moves horizontally in to the closed position, the laser arm moves vertically up to the engaged position (this is how it picks up the disc and begins to spin it). They are both on the same gear system it appears - move the tray in, and the laser head moves up with it; move the tray out, and the laser head moves down with it.

When the laser arm is in the engaged/raised position, the tray cannot eject because the arm obstructs it.

My DVD here, when I hit eject, the laser arm is not dropping correctly, and remains just high enough to obstruct the tray and keep it from fully ejecting. I'm thinking the teeth on the plastic gears got out of alignment so it isn't in sync any longer, and it may just be a case of getting them lined up correctly again.

Yes, That is probally it. And normally, I just force the gears. The Reason? Thats how they proballly got that way in the first place. It is nothing extra hard, just a small flat point screwdriver(or your fingers in some cases, screwdriver for hard places) and some force. Atleast I have had pretty good results with that..... You don't really have to worry about it too much becuase its your drive and h***, if you hose it even worse who cares. (I have only hosed something once, and that was a dart gun... CRUD that spring was strong )

Childhood strory from not too long ago(bd of 1988, you do the math):
My parrents came in and i have a mechinacal clock taken apart. It's alarm had not been working for a long time. They got mad, I put it back together. It worked BETTER than before My age, I don't know. Its suffice to say I don't rember the event, so I had to be pretty young...