LG blue-ray writer

I think my 11-year-old LG Blu-ray writer is on its last legs, it will read blue-ray disks and write to blank Blue-ray, it will read CD disks eventually and will write to blank CD, but it doesn't like DVDs for some reason, no matter what one I use,

i have taken it apart, gave it a clean, even re-done the firmware just in case that had corrupted, not sure what else to try. But maybe someone here may have an idea before I have to splash out on a new one, I don't use it very often, which is why I thought it may need a clean, even oiled the rails the head runs on, just in case that was dry. Put a DVD in, it tries, but just keep clicking. I thought if the laser were miss aligned then surly CD would not work, Blue-rays are read by a different laser.

Anyway if anyone has any ideas, at the end of the day it has done well for 11 years, just not really want to buy another one, even if they are a quarter of the price I paid for mine now.

thanks peeps.

I'm pretty sure that CDs and DVDs also use different lasers.

I never realised that, trying to get info about it is difficult, anyway I found a video on YouTube where a DVD/CD writer was being taken apart, and the two lasers was labelled.
so i presume it is the laser or circuitry for the DVD part that have gone, which is a shame. I will order another one, not sure if to get an External one or not as it could be used for the Mac mini if I decide to get one. I am surprised they are still around, I doubt many people buy an optical drive these days, i am certainly going to go for another LG.

Thanks for the reply.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

I'm pretty sure that CDs and DVDs also use different lasers.

They do:

In reference to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_disc_drive#Laser_and_optics:

Initially, CD-type lasers with a wavelength of 780 nm (within the infrared) were used. For DVDs, the wavelength was reduced to 650 nm (red color), and for Blu-ray Disc this was reduced even further to 405 nm (violet color).

Don’t think there’s much more you could tinker with yourself. Sounds like the laser has gone. PlayStations had a similar issue. For a drive its probably going to be cheaper buying a new one than attempting a repair unfortunately.

I should have realised, no idea why I did not.
I know blue-ray used a different laser, which is why it is called Blue-ray
How on earth did you find that info? I looked for ages and only found something from a YouTube video, thanks for that anyway.

i have ordered this LG one from Ebuyer, it is a newer version than mine, and it can use larger capacity Blu-ray discs than mine and support m disc, I am sure mine never did even with the updates. The one thing mine does have is light scribe, but I did not really use it, and I don't think you can get the disks now anyway.
I know it is old tech and many people don't use it any more, but I still like optical discs for storage, if the amount of data I could store on a floppy drive was higher I would still be using them as well.
I know I am strange, but it is just this physical thing, more pleasing than a USB stick, also I have a lot of stuff still on disk.

I was going to convert my Allo Allo disks onto USB or onto Blu-ray, so I did not have to use the original discs, and that is when I realised that the drive was not reading DVD discs. i thought it was a bit iffy the last time I used it.

As i said before, it is 11 years old, so it have done ok.

It is coming on Monday.

Done that, see post below yours and above this one, and thanks

but it so sad and annoying

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

How on earth did you find that info?

I just googled "cd laser", the Wiki link that it found looked promising, and there it was

One of the few times I've got lucky with search terms

Edited by billford (Thu 21-Oct-21 21:02:03)

Searching a bit further, it seems that some (all?) Blu Ray writers have a single laser for CD/DVD but it has circuitry that switches it's frequency. In either case, it seems you have a problem with the DVD side of things

I've got a nice external Samsung writer, which is useful for switching between my many computers. That's always worked well, and does rewritable Blu Rays too, but I'm not sure if Samsung make them anymore. I always liked LG internal drives.

In reply to a post by billford:

How on earth did you find that info?

I just googled "cd laser", the Wiki link that it found looked promising, and there it was

One of the few times I've got lucky with search terms


Wow, i tried three different search engines and got a load of how to use the laser for something it was not meant to be used for

thanks.