BU40N failing?

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moraa2
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2023 7:28 am

BU40N failing?

Post by moraa2 »

I have a BU40N that was working great for the past few days as I was ripping a UHD box set.

I ran into a scratched disc in the set and it seems to have triggered something. After ripping the next UHD blu-ray after skipping the scratched one because it failed to rip, my BU40N basically fails to power up all the way. This was after trying but failing to rip non-scratched UHD blu-ray disks. Now it will get as far as getting enough power to open the tray but it doesn't show up in as a device, so it's failing to initialize. I am using a usb to sata with external power to slimline adapter to the BU40N.

I have tried 3 different usb to sata adapters and they all work for normal 3.5" HDD. I have tried multiple usb 3.0/3.1/2.0 ports. I tried plugging it in directly to my computers sata ports with sata power and it still didn't connect correctly. I have also tried a different computer with same results.

I had this issue a bit ago and just leaving it unplugged over night fixed it. I am going to try that now.

What is causing this? Is this a firmware bug or failing electical components? Fuse starting to fail? Capacitors failing?

I am not familiar with what fails electrically with bluray drives outside of the laser which seems to work fine up until this issue occurs.
dcoke22
Posts: 3063
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2020 11:25 pm

Re: BU40N failing?

Post by dcoke22 »

There's a tiny computer inside optical drives that runs the firmware. Sometimes it gets into a bad state (especially after a failed rip) and needs to be rebooted. The only way to reboot it is to completely remove power from the drive for a while and then power it back up again. You essentially did this when you left your drive unplugged overnight. It doesn't need overnight, however. 1 minute of being unplugged would do it probably.

I don't have a BU40N, so I don't have any experience with that drive directly. The drives I do have, however, I occasionally power down for about 1 minute when they get into this bad state and they seem to recover.
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