On The morning of 01/18/05 I came downstairs to hear a terrible scraping sound coming from My PB Pismo CD-RW/DVD drive (It was upgraded from the Original Stock DVD. The Drive in it is a Sony CRX-820E [the same in the 900MHz G3 iBook] )
After taking out the disc that I was trying to recover files from Using Toast (the disc was scratched and could not be read w/ the finder.) It was still making the scraping sound without the disc in it. Fearing that the Motor had it's bearings go out (if it did use bearings). I was determined that I was going to fix it. (I have no money because I have no job [which I almost got robbed by some gang member while looking for one, but that is another story)
I layed out a felt pad to protect the parts while working on it. I took the thing apart about 7 times and put it back together. Each with no success. (the scraping sound had gone but it was now unable to read discs.)
Later that night (after settling down from almost being mugged) I took it apart one last time and inspected the Mechanisms carfully, I noticed the cable from the Mainboard had come free. (it was hard to tell because it was hidden) After maticulous probing, I got the thing together and I still couldn't get the thing to read. Out of curiousity, I tried another disc (I had been using the one that I was trying to recover files from. DUH!) It started reading, but it still kept making the sound of: chchchchchchch *chingc* chchchchchchch *chingc* *chingc*
Finally, getting frustrated on not getting it to work. I pulled out the drive, and thinking "since, it's broken, It probably won't hurt it" and gave it the hardest slap on the case that I could do, slammed it back into the drive back and, Surprisingly, The disc showed up on the desktop.
Go Figure... I still can't think what that slap did that it would start the drive working again.
Yay, I fixed it.
January 19, 2005 - 9:14am
#1
Yay, I fixed it.
In one of my very old computers(486 something) it had a 6x cd drive that refused to work, i had tried every logical thing. so i just took it out and slammed it against the desk, plugged it back in.... worked for 2 more years.
In my old high school I was helping a teacher with her mac, an LC580 I beleive. She said one day it just wouldn't boot (flashing question mark disk). I tried a couple things and thought it would need to have the OS reinstalled when along comes my friend Matt. Turns it back on and sees the blinky disk. Gives it a good WHACK on on the side. BONG and up comes the happy Mac. Imagine that.
This is a long drawn out story that eventually makes a point:
Back in January of '96, I worked at CompUSA with my buddy Doc and the Sunshine Angel (the soon to be Mrs. Darkness). When the Cowboys were playing Green Bay, we were all at work, and the store was mostly empty cuz ever' self respectin Texan was watchin the game! Well, being employess of a retail computer store, we had no self respect, but we were still interested in watching the game.
One of the "Hardware" guys fired up one of the new Pentium 75 machines with a TV card, and was able to get channel 8 pretty well, so all of the sales associates and the two customers were back there watching the game. I was working the Corporate Sales counter (meaning I did what the other people did, just by the hundreds), and the Sunshine Angel, being the Cash Office Manager, was running a register because all of the checkers had either asked for the day off or called in sick. My buddy Doc was answering the phone upstairs and listening to the game on the radio. Knowing my situation, he would occasionally get on the PA and announce the score of the game to the store. He would then give a nice little pitch like "This Cowboys update brought to you by CompUSA". As he announced the winning score of 38-27, he let fly his best line of the day:
"This update brought to you by the CompUSA Tech Department, whose motto is 'There ain't nuthin a hammer cain't fix!'"
See... I told you there was a point...