PIONEER BD-RW BDR-209D won't detect any discs

[PurpleWayneMV]

I've been having difficulties with my Pioneer BD-RW BDR-209D drive and am wondering if anyone has had a similar issue with it not detecting any discs.

One day it had a lot of trouble reading a disk and I had to abort the process. Then afterwards it refused to detect any discs being inserted, whether CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray. After awhile I gave up trying to get it to work again.

But some time later, out of the blue I tried the drive again and to my surprise it seemed to work completely normally, detecting and fully reading one whole Blu-Ray disk with no trouble at all.

But the very next time I tried using it, it was back to not detecting any discs of any kind, and I have not gotten it to work again since. I've repeatedly tried cleaning it with compressed air, but that doesn't seem to help at all.

Also, after this drive was already giving me trouble I tried upgrading the firmware to 1.34, but it just gave me some sort of error (I forget the exact message) saying in effect that the new firmware could not be written to the drive for some unknown reason. (Yes, I know I do not want the 1.50 firmware or newer.)

Does anyone have any advice on how I can troubleshoot this? I'm running Windows 11, if that matters. If it is probably an issue with the drive's laser, can anyone here recommend a good repair service?

MakeMKV does recognize the drive itself just fine and gives me this info:

Drive Information
OS device name: B:
Manufacturer: PIONEER
Product: BD-RW BDR-209D
Revision: 1.31
Serial number: [redacted]
Firmware date: 2015-05-25
Bus encryption flags: 13
Highest AACS version: 76

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: RS8600
Firmware name: PIONEER BDR-209
Firmware type: Original (unpatched)
Firmware version: 1.31/ID61
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

No disc inserted

[Billycar11]

Clean the lasers with a damp lint free something and dry with another

[PurpleWayneMV]

I know it's been awhile since I posted earlier. Cleaning the drive didn't seem to make much difference. But when I had it open I moved the carriage and that seemed to have gotten it working again, temporarily.

Now the drive is working sometimes, but then just suddenly stops working. I now suspect (but don't know how to confirm) that the issue is the carriage that the laser ride on gets stuck and won't move to different tracks on the disc. When it stops working, to get it working again it seems that I have to open the case and manually pull the carriage forward, then it may work again but probably only for short time (maybe long enough to read a single disk, maybe not). I have to keep redoing this after each time it fails.

Is there a proper way to lubricate the rails or other parts inside? What kind of grease to use, if any? Can anyone suggest other ideas for a long-term fix?

[Billycar11]

Did you clean the lasers

[PurpleWayneMV]

I tried cleaning them with a cleaning disk (with tiny brushes on it) meant to DVD players, but I don't know if it did any good. And I tried many times with compressed air.

I want to try cleaning them with lint free cloths, but I still haven't figured out how to open the device up enough to have direct access the lasers. I can open the bottom cover, but that's isn't enough to grant me access to the laser, argh.

[PurpleWayneMV]

I finally figured out to get the case apart so that it would give me access to the lasers. I knew about the plastic tabs holding the front panel on, but didn't realize I'd have to have the tray open before I could get it lose. And the front panel was holding the main cover on.

The lasers didn't look at all dirty to my eye, even with a magnifying glass, but I carefully wiped them with a microfiber cloth anyway. I'll try another disc soon and see if it helped.