Is my Asus BW-16D1HT broken?

[Arp137]

Hi,

I used that drive for years now with makemkv and everything was fine, including UHDs.
Since today it does not recognize any disc, not even regular bluray discs. Even from booting the PC its LED is just blinking... When I put in a disc, it does not seem to spin up, just keeps blinking.

makemkv (in linux) though still sees it as a device.
Is it broken? Do I need a new one? Or can I do something about it?

Thanks.

[d00zah]

You mention rebooting the PC. Have you actually powered down the PC for a brief period before restarting?

[Arp137]

Yes. I gave it an hour so without the pc being plugged into the socket.

I also noticed that makemkv at least saw the disc label of the movie. But when I clicked on the button, it seemed to don't do anything, and after 5 minutes I just cancelled it.

[dcoke22]

Does it work with a DVD?

DVDs and blu-rays/UHDs use different wavelengths of lasers and as such, there are two lasers in your drive. If the DVD works but the blu-ray doesn't, then you know the 'blue' laser is bad.

[Arp137]

Same behaviour.
The led of the drive is just blinking. It does a make a few short noises, but nothing is happening. Makemkv also shows "No disc". And when I take it out again, the disc did not move it's rotation, so it seems that it was never spinning.
The short noises might be attempts to spin the disc? Maybe the rotos is stuck somehow? Should I blow some canned air through? Or maybe open up the drive?

[d00zah]

Try removing/re-seating the power connector, or try a different one on the harness. There's not much left to try if it won't even spin up. Of course, there's always some carefully applied "percussive maintenance"... as a last resort.

[Arp137]

Doesn't help.

Guess I'll try to open it tomorrow and see if I can do something. I mean, I can't make it worse, right?
Though I probably should start looking for a new drive that is compatible.

[Arp137]

I opened it, and then watched the drive to it's thing. The (red) laser turns on, moves a bit around. The disc is actually a little bit, like 2 or 3 degrees while the laser searches something.
In one of the tries I gave the disc a little spin with my finger (actually on a thing from the drive, not the disc itself), then it suddelny pun up completely and linux immediately recognized the DVD. But then it made terrible noises so I turned it off again and never managed to see that again.
I assume now that is some kind of mechanical error, or maybe something in the electronics that prevents spinning to start if you don't give it a push.
But I don't know how to proceed.

[MartyMcNuts]

I opened it, and then watched the drive to it's thing. The (red) laser turns on, moves a bit around. The disc is actually a little bit, like 2 or 3 degrees while the laser searches something.
In one of the tries I gave the disc a little spin with my finger (actually on a thing from the drive, not the disc itself), then it suddelny pun up completely and linux immediately recognized the DVD. But then it made terrible noises so I turned it off again and never managed to see that again.
I assume now that is some kind of mechanical error, or maybe something in the electronics that prevents spinning to start if you don't give it a push.
But I don't know how to proceed.

Throw it in the bin and buy a new drive.