LG BU40N scratching discs all of a sudden

[vilebloodzeke]

So I've been ripping some blu-rays and 4k blu-rays the last few days and today the drive is scratching my discs. It has created a ring about an inch away from the disc hole on the last 3 discs I've tried to rip. I tried opening The 40-Year Old Virgin 4K in MakeMKV and it didn't work. It just ejected the disc. Then I tried the blu-ray version and it read it but it was scratched. I just assumed maybe the discs were already like that. Later in the day I went to try to open Evangelion 3.0+1.0 4K in MakeMKV and it didn't work either and it is now scratched as well. I'm afraid to try and rip anything now. Anyone else had this issue?

[SamSpeexy]

Is the drive hooked up only to the USB port? Or does it have external power?

These drives can scratch discs if they aren't receiving stable power input.

Asmcom did a nice writeup about the issue.
https://shop.uhdfriendlydrives.co.uk

[vilebloodzeke]

It has a USB cable with another USB coming off of it.

IMG_0419.jpeg (3.59 MiB) Viewed 2236 times

[Woodstock]

This is a "dual power" USB cable, intended to be plugged into two separate USB power sources to get enough current to run the drive at full speed.

A given USB port will provide up to 4.5 watts of power, most of the time. USB 3 can provide more, if it's actually provisioned that way. This drive probably needs at least 8 watts to go full speed.

[vilebloodzeke]

So is my drive screwed? I've tried connecting it to multiple USB inputs and now it's not even reading discs. Seems like it tries to read the disc and then tries again multiple times. I just tried my new 4K Blu-ray of Speed Racer and now that is scratched. This is super frustrating.