My Memorex DVD player, which was under warranty until about six weeks ago, has suddenly completely died with a rented disc inside. The tray that holds the disc will apparently only eject under power, but I can’t get it to turn on at all. Is there any easy way to get the disc out without taking the whole thing apart or taking it to a shop?
Most CD/DVD drives have a little hole in the front. It looks like it’s just big enough to jab an unbent paperclip into.
Well,. that’s what it is for.
It will disengage the tray and you can manually pull it open.
Sure, you could use that pinhole and a paperclip to get that disk. But where is the fun in that?
I suggest high explosives, very high explosives.
If you are unable to obtain TNT or C-4 from your friendly neighborhood crack dealer the more mudane hammer can be used. This is best done in a public place such as the sidewalk in front of a local school, the steps of the Capitol Building, just outside your local police station, or when called for jury duty.
I had a problem with a rented tape - I had to open the cover and supply 12VDC to the motor to eject the tape - it worked.
Sometimes unplugging it from wall for a minute & plugging it back in can restore internal electronics & get these working again.
If all else fails, Mr. Sledgehammer can always get the job done. Seriously, if you can’t get the thing powered up and there’s no chance for repair, just jimmy the tray open with a screwdriver or pop open the case and push it out yourself.
with my roommate out of town for 2 weeks, I got one of his DVDs stuck in his player. I had to take the whole thing apart very carefully with a screwdriver.
Note: I had to stab the disc with the screwdriver and break it into about 5 pieces to get it out. Ugghh.
Yikes!! Be sure to unplug the motor leads from the driver circuit before you do that. Motor drivers usually have very low output impedance and externally applied voltage will be sucked back into the drive chip, burning it all to hell.
I got out of consumer electronics repair two years ago so I haven’t kept up to date on the latest models, but CD and DVD players are usually made with a small hole under the unit, big enough for a screwdriver. It should be somewhere under the tray. This hole allows access to the main gear that drives the tray loading mechanism. Peer into the hole to see if you can clearly identify what should look like a plastic gear with a slot in it. If you see this, insert a screwdriver and gently twist.
One of the reasons I left consumer electronics was that manufacturers started making things less & less technician friendly. Some new complicated CD changers were coming out that didn’t have the techie shortcuts like the one I mention above. One CD changer in particular that drove me stark raving mad when it got jammed is made by a company who’s name I won’t mention… let’s just say their initials are JVC 
If there is no hole in the bottom chassis, try popping the lid to see if you can reach the tray gear with your finger to spin it manually.
Legacy of the Macintosh floppy drive, I believe! Back when Macs had floppy drives, they ejected themselves by a motor. Well, sometimes you’d have reason to eject one that the operating system didn’t “see”, or you’d want to eject it while the computer was turned off. So there was this little hole in front, see, and you’d straighten out a paper clip…
I don’t doubt what you say. The VCR was old and ready for the scrap heep but I had to get that tape out - so i took a chance(even guessing at the polarity). funny thing is that after i got that tape out I tried another ‘junk’ tape and it worked - I still have that vcr and it has never been better.
My ][GS’s 3.5 drive had the hole, too. I’m sure it’s actually a legacy from the first (1982 era) Audio CD drives, though.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I haven’t been able to find a release anywhere, so I took the cover off the &*%#@$! thing and found out that the disc is trapped inside the drive pretty securely. It doesn’t look like there’s an easy way to get it out without breaking something or supplying electrical power to the eject mechanism, but I’ll mess with it a little more before I do anything drastic. As it happens, right before this problem started there was a thunderstorm and I didn’t unplug my appliances. When I took the cover off the DVD player I could easily see an obvious burned-out, blackened resistor on one of the circuit boards. So my next question is, am I likely to be able to fix this thing by taking that resistor out and soldering another one in its place, or is it more complicated than that?
Problem: You don’t know what the correct value shoudl be for the resistor if it is burned and the color bands aren’t visible. This is where the technician’s intuition comes in handy- it’s probably a series limiting resistor in the power supply and probably a low value like 4.7 or 47 ohms. Probably.
But this resistor doesn’t usually burn out from a power surge, it usually burns out because something else somewhere in the device went south and started drawing heavy current from the power supply.
If you don’t care what you do to the machine, then start disassembling the disc drive to get the disc out. Alignments & gear timing will probably get screwed up but that’s OK if you don’t mind that the player never works again.
If you do want the player to work again, don’t touch it. Take it to service and get it fixed. The one thing I hated to see was signs of somebody going in to their CD player and taking the damn thing apart and then expecting ME to get it back together again. I often refused to work on them. How could I refuse to work on them, you ask? Easy:
Customer: My CD changer is jammed.
Me: (After inspecting the mechanism) I’m sorry, it’s quite obvious that somebody has opened the machanism so your warranty is void.
Customer: OK, well then I’ll pay for it C.O.D. Can you fix it?
Me: Oh suuuuuure I can, but it’ll cost ya. (Reaches for condoms & lube.)
Even if the service tech sees signs of massive power failure (as if from a lightning hit) they will advise you it’s not cost-effective to repair but they should be nice enough to extract the disc for you. At least that’s what I would do.
I managed to get the disc out without scratching it and (I think) without damaging the disc drive, but I probably won’t try to fix it because different people have told me that there’s probably more damage than was visible. Thanks again for all the advice, everyone.
Just wondering what movie it was that you went through all this trouble for?
RoboCop
Darn, I was hoping that you’d take AcidKid’s advice. Of course, I was going to remind you to have the videocamera rolling when you did… 