Exploding Blu-Ray Disc In Asus BW-16D1HT

[Rojma]

I purchased an Asus BW-16D1HT drive just under a month ago and put it in an Vantec NexStar external enclosure. I downgraded the firmware to 3.02 successfully and started ripping my movie and music collection successfully with MakeMKV. I was able to rip my CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and 4K Blu-Rays.

As I have been using MakeMKV I have slowly been learning how to use it including how to get additional content like bonus material. Today I was taking a second look at a blu-ray that I had previously ripped successfully but only the movie. I wanted to get the bonus material off of it too. I put it into the Asus drive and opened up MakeMKV. Strangely MakeMKV seemed to be having issues reading the disc, although it was not straight out failing. I removed the disc and it did have some smudges on it so I cleaned it and put it back in. MakeMKV seemed to continue to have issues with reading the disc. It did seem to successfully read parts of it though.

It was taking a while but I figured it would eventually finish. However at one point the drive started to spin really fast and I heard a loud pop. It almost sounded like a capicitor or something exploding. Lo and behold though that when I went to eject the disc, there was no disc. It had completely exploded in the drive. There were bits and pieces of the disc all in the drive and I literally had to shake all of the pieces out of the drive.

Unfortunately the exploding disc seems to have taken out the drive as it no longer reads any discs. Any disc I put in - CD, DVD, Blu-Ray - it just spits back out. I never hear it spin up so that might be the main issue. Fortunately I am still within 30 days and I bought from Amazon so I am going to submit an exchange request. Fortuantely I had also already ripped that movie so I didn't completely lose the movie - just the original disc and any bonus content that was on that disc.

Anyone ever had an issue like this happen to them before? Out of coincidence this was my oldest Blu-Ray in my collection (about 12 years old) so I am wondering if the disc had worn out over time and was weakened? When the drive started spinning so fast the weakened disc must have just exploded. Is there a way to prevent the drive from spinning so fast so something like this does not happen again in the future?

[Billycar11]

i have defiantly heard a few asus drives spin up crazy fast but never one shatter a disk and kill itself

[SamuriHL]

I've had mine scratch 2 or 3 blu-rays so far but never exploded a disc. It ruined my Incredibles 2 blu-ray (NOT the UHD). I've stopped putting blu-rays in that drive. It's...odd.

[Rojma]

I've been wondering if part of what led to this problem was possibly a bug in the older firmware of the drive that caused it spin at such high speeds. I was reading that there is a newer 3.10 MK firmware. When I get the replacement drive would it be a good idea to apply the 3.10 MK firmware instead of downgrading to 3.02 to possibly prevent this issue from happening again (assuming that the newer firmware may have a bug fix for this issue)?

[BlueMac77]

I purchased an Asus BW-16D1HT drive just under a month ago and put it in an Vantec NexStar external enclosure. I downgraded the firmware to 3.02 successfully and started ripping my movie and music collection successfully with MakeMKV. I was able to rip my CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and 4K Blu-Rays.

Anyone ever had an issue like this happen to them before? Out of coincidence this was my oldest Blu-Ray in my collection (about 12 years old) so I am wondering if the disc had worn out over time and was weakened? When the drive started spinning so fast the weakened disc must have just exploded. Is there a way to prevent the drive from spinning so fast so something like this does not happen again in the future?

@Rojma Sorry to hear about the exploding disc in your drive. It’s scary and a “Wake Up Call” for us to take caution. What month and year was your Asus BW-16D1HT manufactured when you purchased this drive from Amazon? To get a heads up in case a certain batch of Asus drives to avoid buying. Thanks

[Woodstock]

Exploding disks are not unheard of, but they usually involve disks that were damaged already. It IS one of the things they USED to warn about with drives that could do more than about 10x on CDs. Actually, they still do warn about it - on the small, folded up piece of paper that 27 languages of warnings, that would make a small book if printed at realistic type sizes.

Early CD/DVD drives used cartridges to contain the disks when/if they came apart, to protect the consumer and the drive mechanism.

[Rojma]

Info on drive below:

BW-16D1TH/BLK/G/AS
90DD0200-B28010
Made in Malaysia
Manufactured October 2018

Check Number: 6DFK

Since I am sending the drive back, I decided to update the firmware to the Asus 3.10 version. I didn't want them rejecting the return due to downgrade of firmware. I was also hoping that maybe a firmware update would resurrect the drive. The firmware did take but the drive still does not work (not spinning up). Replacement drive has already shipped and I should have it tomorrow.

[Rojma]

Regarding a damaged disc being the problem, when I was cleaning the disc I did notice some sort of blemish at the edge of the disc, but I can't say for sure if it was some type of damage or defect. Besides that nothing out of the ordinary. It's strange that I was able to rip this same disc not even a month ago without issues, and then yesterday started to give me all sorts of issues.

[BlueMac77]

Thanks for the detailed info, Rojma. It’s good that the replacement drive is on it’s way. Exploded discs inside the optical drive seems rare as I haven’t read any articles or posts in forums about this problem.

[themightydeity]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but just reporting that I ran into same issue today with 3.10 MK firmware. I was trying to recover a scratched disc using ddrescue, during the second phase of scraping the data, the drive was spinning the disc really fast, then suddenly bang.

Disc is totally shattered in many small pieces, I managed to take all of the pieces out by opening the drive and cleaning it up, fortunately drive still works.

[Billycar11]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but just reporting that I ran into same issue today with 3.10 MK firmware. I was trying to recover a scratched disc using ddrescue, during the second phase of scraping the data, the drive was spinning the disc really fast, then suddenly bang.

Disc is totally shattered in many small pieces, I managed to take all of the pieces out by opening the drive and cleaning it up, fortunately drive still works.

Yeah these desktop drives especially Asus spin up real fast then slow down over and over on hard to read discs if you ever hear it doing that just stop it