Toshiba Satellite A55 optical drive

edited April 2017 in Hardware
The optical drive in this laptop seems to work fine - until you eject the disc. If the drive is open when the computer starts up, and you insert a disc after loading into Windows, it'll read just fine.

However! If you eject the disc and try to insert another, the system will freeze up for a while before just saying the drive is empty. If I listen closely, it makes the typical sounds an optical drive would make - with the exception of focusing the lens, which seems abnormally loud and sounds almost like a POST beep to me.

Is this a software issue or a hardware issue? Do I simply need to update the drive firmware / reinstall Windows / perform some obscure form of DLL black magic to get it working, or should I clean the lens and try to find a replacement drive?

It's the original DVD-ROM drive that came with this laptop when it was new, and it only started doing this about a year ago. I'm starting to get sick of these shenanigans and I don't want to pull out my other laptop every time I have to read a disc or burn an image without restarting.

The drive appears to be in a weird form factor, and I'm not even sure how to get it out or remove the bezel to install a new drive.

Ideas?

I say, it's been a few months hasn't it? Good to be back, if not for my reasoning here.

Comments

  • That be hardware issue. You can do as you please of course. But I personally gave up on trying to keep working CD/DVD drives going in Toshibas and went to external.

    All the later toshis do it the same way, single screw.

    laptop-disassembly-05.jpg
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