Optical drive won't close

[grimstar]

A friend of mine called me up this morning and asked that I try to figure out this problem for him, and I figured what better place to try and find an answer than here.

I guess the story goes like this...as time went on from opening and closing his optical drive, his girlfriends hair built built up in the little gear, causing problems with it opening and closing (I believe it is external, and the drive was sitting on the floor). He decided to take it apart. He removed all of the hair successfully and put it back together...however when he goes to close it, it goes to shut, then gets near the end and pops back open again.

He said he took it to some computer place and they were sort of baffled and unable to fix it. I'm not an expert but I'm assuming it's hitting something before it gets to the state where it would consider itself closed, and because it can't close it pops back open? It seems like if that were the case a computer store that deals with hardware would be able to determine that to be the problem.

If anyone has any other ideas or has had a similar problem feel free to chime in. Sorry I don't know the exact drive or anything but if someone asks in order to come up with a solution I'll call him up and ask him.

Thanks

 

[chookman]

Buy a new one

 

[ubermoose]

I had a [maybe] similar problem when i installed an optical drive bevel [the thing that hides the face of the drive] on the front of my case.

When i pressed the button it would start to open, then, as the cover swung down the bottom part of it would press the button to close the drive again. It only took a few minutes to realise i just needed to move the drive back a mm or 2 to allow the door/flap to open fully.

I realised after writing this that this was unlikley to be the cause of your friends problem but the same sort of thing applies. It was working [except for the hair] before he took it apart, therefore it wasn't put back together correctly. I would take it apart and try again. Or at least take the cover off to see if you can observe what is happening when the open button is pressed.