[CoLoCo] laptop cd burner

[Ryan Maki]

On Nov 21, 2007, at 10:58 PM, David Overcash wrote:

> If the drive doesn't work in either XP or Ubuntu, then the drive's  
> laser went bad.
>
> It's important to know that DVD?CD-RW drives have multiple lasers,  
> one for reading CDs, one for reading DVDs, and one for writing CDs.   
> It's very possible that the "burning" laser/lens went bad somehow  
> (happened on this laptop after about 2 years).

Indeed, I've experienced this several times.  One diode goes out, but  
the others work just fine.

There are multiple laser diodes under that lens in your optical  
drive.  Typically each is tuned to a particular frequency/power  
setting.  In my new laptop optical drive there are so many "readable"  
and "writable" formats supported that it has _three_ lens assemblies!   
I'm sure that eventually one of them will die (most likely the HD-DVD)  
but the rest will work for years.  :(

I've had three occasions in the last two years where my drive stopped  
reading DVD-RWs, but it could still burn them, and it could still read  
"standard" pressed DVDs.  Frustrating.  This also happened to several  
of our machines at work.  I think as the number and types of laser  
diodes increases in consumer drives to support the proliferation of  
optical formats, we'll be seeing much more of this in the future.

~ Ryan