DVD burner HP DVD Ram UJ8B1 doesnt read / write anymore Verbatim disks

hi guys,

something really odd happened yesterday.... Burner working overall ok - had a dirty lens the other day - cleaned and was working well..

Yesterday I tried windows' burn function, which I never tried, and there's an option where you can use the disk like a hard disk, or sort of... I tried that.. had a Verbatim DVD-RW inside... it burned whatever he had to do.

Then he was supposed to close the session, it took ages and I got a bit annoyed so I opened the tray, it seemed to have finished what he was doing, and ended there.

After that I tried some other DVD as I had to do something, and now it turns out is not reading or writing anymore Verbatim Disks! as if he was offended I didn't let him finish...how odd is that???

if I put a blank disk in it starts reading it and after a while it says no disk... if I put an old DVD but still OK it says the same. But on another brand, TDK, Tesco or some original Nikon dvd I have, it reads those perfectly...

I have Nero here, model is HP DVD Ram UJ8B1 - or is he like a girl and in few hours will be working again?

thanks,
Gab

Gabriolli mate first that comes to mind is how old is the drive?? maybe time for a new one and they are so cheap these days too.

One thing you could try is reseating the SATA cables to the drive and the board or even renewing it.

Yep well the disk itself might just work on another machine but it really doesn't mean the device in your machine is ok.
I still think that although the drive might not have been used a lot it can still be a bit out of whack. Now for example a dropping the machine and I am not suggesting you have can and will knock the device out of lne as it were because the inner mechanisms - I don't know if you are familiar with them are extremely fine and the laser read head and the rails it runs on can be so easily knocked out of alignment.
There is also a controller on a small printed circuit board that could also be faulty itself and maybe detached form the device. see pic

Again for the price of a new one and out here a laptop one would set me back about $80 but there are new ones available on EBay less than that.

Glad you got it sorted Gab like I said mate for the money it isn't worth the hassle and possible wrecking of your system

Now if I were you and I know you are not of course I would be making a duplicate of that disk in case it gets lost or damaged. I reckon you did pretty good too as you would not believe how many folks we have post in here that haven't done that and are now stuck.:)

PS I just remembered yours is a desktop as I was thinking laptop and yes the desktop ones out here are around the price you paid for one.

Oh well still a simple fix eh?:) and I was quoting form a site I don't use that much anymore for price.

PS If you feel inclined this is a much better way of protesting yourself and you don't need any fancy or large external spinner as you can just keep the last four or so images.
Imaging with free Macrium