lots of blu-ray DVD and CD players are
given up as hopelessly broken when these
few troubleshooting tips can often bring
them back to life hi I'm Peter muli
founder of fix-it clinic a community
repair workshop where we teach people
how to disassemble troubleshoot and
repair their broken consumer electronics
and household appliances blu-ray DVD and
CD players are all devices that use
optical drives an optical drive is a
device that reads discs and is composed
of a spindle motor that spins the disc
and a laser assembly that moves along a
track while reading the disc when you're
dealing with an optical drive that's not
working here are some steps to take to
troubleshoot the issue first and
foremost make sure your drive can read
the disk you're using to test it we've
seen people play an mp3 formatted disc
in a standard audio disc player or a
blu-ray disc in a standard DVD player
that won't work people also try to read
discs that are badly scratched and think
that the drives not working so make sure
to test the player with a disk that you
know is good and of the proper format
once you verified that the optical drive
can play the media you are using check
that the motor spindle is actually
spinning the disk insert the disc with
the label in an orientation that you
know and see if it spins when you close
the lid or insert the tray if you open
it again and the disc is spinning or you
at least see that it's in a different
orientation each time you open and close
it that's a good sign that the motor
itself is working the next thing to try
is cleaning the lens use a q-tip and
some 91% isopropyl alcohol from the
drugstore to remove any debris or
fingerprints that may have gotten on the
lens preventing it from working
correctly lastly if cleaning the lens
with a q-tip doesn't work this next
trick works the vast majority of the
time get a plastic spudger and nudge the
laser assembly in its track don't force
it too hard but just give it enough of a
nudge to move it about 1/3 of the length
of the track that seems to unstick the
laser guide assembly and allows it to
reset so it can read the disc from the
inside out as it's intended if you tried
this repair whether you were successful
or not please tell us about your
experience by clicking on the link in
the description below and we hope to see
your smiling face at an upcoming Fixit
clinic