Optical drive door won't open

[quincey]

None of my cd/dvd programs will open the door and the button on the drive won't open the door. The reset doesn't do anything either.

The drive is a lite on drive.

Any help appreciated

I did hear of a utility program that opens or closes the drawer but I can find that program.

 

[TrainableMan]

There is a tiny pin hole on the front of the drive; this may be blocked by a case cover you will need to remove if you have a desktop unit. Slide a paperclip into the hole and it will manually eject the drawer. This won't fix the unit; it likely needs replaced, but it will get out a stuck cd/dvd. On occasion it will work for a while after this trick but it will likely die soon unless it was just jammed somehow. These units are easily replaced; for desktop units they cost about $20US.

There are generally two types of connection: IDE or SATA (SCSI are extremely rare any more). The IDE connection uses a large 3" wide ribbon cable and sata uses a thin 1/4" wide cable.

 

[Mychael]

If you haven't already tried it you can sometimes get the draw to open if you hold down the eject button as you power up the computer.

 

[Nibiru2012]

You can also right-click on the drive icon in Computer window and select "Eject" and see if that works. If it doesn't more than likely your DVD drive may be F.U.B.A.R.

Sometimes the eject mechanism will get sticky too, the parts are all plastic and can jam on occasion, if you or a friend have some "Dry" spray silicone lube that may work too, it did for me on an old drive I had for over 8 years before it finally went to the scrap heap.