Do you need to reboot to get your optical drive working again?

[RasterEyes]

I have two optical drives in my Windows 11 system, both internal LG drives: A UHD-capable WH16NS60, with firmware updated so I can rip UHD discs, and an older WH14NS40.

After ripping discs for a while, the WH16NS60 starts generating errors. It either fails in the middle of ripping a disc, or just won't load discs in the first place anymore. Rebooting my computer will fix this problem when it occurs, although sometimes it seems like a full power down of my PC is necessary before I get the drive going again.

Does anyone else run into this problem? If so, do you know of a better, less disruptive solution than a total reboot, like some way to reboot just the drive itself?

I don't recall this happening with the older WH14NS40, although maybe I've just forgotten. I only use the WH14NS40 when I'm ripping two discs at a time.

[Billycar11]

very common on the lg and asus drives

[RasterEyes]

very common on the lg and asus drives

And rebooting is the best anyone has come up with for this problem?

[MartyMcNuts]

very common on the lg and asus drives

And rebooting is the best anyone has come up with for this problem?

Put your drive in an enclosure so that you can switch it on and off instead of restarting your PC.

[DerHaug]

very common on the lg and asus drives

And rebooting is the best anyone has come up with for this problem?

Put your drive in an enclosure so that you can switch it on and off instead of restarting your PC.

Can you recommend an enclosure for SATA drives that works with MakeMKV? I have been looking for one but couldn't really find anything that looks decent. I would like to mount my two drives into external enclosures

[RasterEyes]

Put your drive in an enclosure so that you can switch it on and off instead of restarting your PC.

Now that's an interesting option! I prefer the lack of clutter using an internal drive, but making my drive external might be worth it to solve this problem.

I'm OK if I'm not trying to rip a 4K disc, or trying to speed things along by ripping two discs at a time, since I've got a second drive that's good for other Blu-rays.

Fortunately my pace of ripping discs of any kind should slow down soon anyway. I had a big data loss several years ago when I screwed up the procedure for fixing a failed drive in my Unraid NAS. It took me a long time to face re-ripping everything that was lost. But I've finally done that now, and I'm almost finished with the backlog of discs that I didn't rip since then.

[TheCrazyCanuck]

Vantec enclosures are working well for me. I've had to replace probably 4 LGs and 2 ASUS UHD capable drives already so I would look for a different model if it eventually dies (sounds like it to me). I'm using eight of these: https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NST-536S3 ... B01MRUN0HQ I forget if I had an LG or ASUS in one of those enclosures but it would turn off when you shut your computer off so you might find that handy too.

I'm going to eventually move everything to external enclosures because computer cases with lots of 5.25" bays are becoming rare. Plus rarely am I ripping lots of stuff all the time so taking up all that space in a case that could be better put to use makes more sense to me.

[fanglord]

I've got a similar problem, buy my drive won't come back. I bought a new LG Electronics WH14NS40 and applied the firmware to allow ripping of 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disks. I was able to rip 4 disks the first day, and it worked flawlessly. Then I came across a bad disk. It turns out it has major scratching from those little broken-off bits of plastic that are in the round central spindle that holds them inside the case. No worries, returned the disk for a new one.

Since that happened, My drive has not recognized ANY disk put inside of it. It's in an enclosure, so I tried multiple computers. Same response.

Things I've tried:
Two different computers, both of which it worked on before. (1 Mac, 1 PC)
Several different disks, both 4K Ultra Blu-ray and standard 1080p Blu-ray.
Rebooted both computers and power cycled the Blu-ray drive multiple times.

I'm kinda stuck now. Anyone have any suggestions?