[TriLUG] cdrom: does pushing the tray in damage them?

[Brian Henning]

I'm no expert, but by all counts, I can say that pushing the tray in a 
bit (and letting the motor take over) /shouldn't/ damage the drive.  Now 
if you shove it all the way in way faster than the motor would move it, 
you're probably causing unnecessary stress on the closure mechanism, but 
otherwise, I believe they're designed to behave that way -- they have a 
position sensor on the tray for (apparently) exactly that reason.  If it 
detects the tray moving inward, it kicks in the motor and finishes closing.

~B


Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:
> My last two cdrom drives have demised by the tray not staying in (it 
> just pops out again). From where I sit, the button is underneath the 
> tray, so I just push the tray in. Then the other day I pushed the tray 
> in and it popped back out again. On riffling through my hardware stash, 
> I found the last cdrom drive with a note "tray won't stay in". So this 
> has happened to 2 drives. I only use them very occassionally, I'd expect 
> I've had less than 50 insertions on the last drive, which might be 
> 2-3yrs old.
> 
> Is this just one of those things, or does pushing the tray in damage the 
> cdrom?
> 
> Thanks Joe
> 

-- 
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Brian A. Henning
strutmasters.com
336.597.2397x238
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