How to fix a blu-ray drive?

My laptop internal Blu-ray drive (Panasonic/Matsh1ta UJ-220) seems to have random difficulty reading Blu-ray disc. It can't read the disc and that includes both Blu-ray movies and data. The problem happens randomly but seems to be getting worse lately. I have tried to clean the lenses, remove and reinstall the drive, upgrading to the latest firmware (1.04), try both XP and Vista, reinstall from the Recovery DVD but the problem doesn't go away.

DVD and CD, however, work perfectly.

Is there anything else I could do to fix the drive?

 

Well, on my old laptop DVDs started top fail first, then CDs... and finally the DVD/CD drive was unuseable.

If BlueRay is only a Blue laser instead of red, then it may be a failling drive-
Excluding driver conflicts.

Are you under warranty?

 

if under warranty, get it replaced.

and yes, there are different lenses for each type, blueray dvd and cd..

i thought at least

 

Unfortunately, it is out of warranty. I would exclude driver conflict since I have 3 different OS, Original Vista partition that originally comes with the laptop, my own clean vista without any bloatware and XP. All of them exhibit the same behavior.

I really hate this because this is a Blu-ray burner and I can't afford to replace it with another burner. May be another Blu-ray reader but no money for the burner.

Is Sony Optiarc better than Panasonic/Matsh1ta? Is there any other brand that will fit?

 

That might be a question best asked in your respective OEM subforum.
If I were to guess I'd say its a failing drive though, sorry

 

while unlikely.. have you checked for some firmware upgrade for it?

and the drive didn't got "locked out" because of too many "regional setting switches"? i don't know how a drive reacts when it's regional settings changes are over (one can only do 5 or so).

i still think it's the lens failing, but those are random thoughts that might help?

 

The latest firmware upgrade is 1.04 from Sony which I have.
I am pretty sure this is not region lockout because I never changed the region. Besides it can't even read Blu-ray data which has no region restriction.

 

thought so

 

hendra,

I noticed that the software makes a difference how smoothly BD DVD's are played. Have you tried that - or even tried it under Win 7?

I know Sony issued an updated BD player software because it was refusing to play the newer (or was it older?) titles. Maybe the software is your issue? As I find it hard to believe just the BD part doesn't play and DVD's and CD's do. (Of course, I've been wrong before about HD issues! )

Good luck.

 

I have both PowerDVD and WinDVD. Once the disc is recognized, the movie plays but I don't think the problem is with the software.

The problem is the disc isn't even recognized by Windows Explorer. Normally, you can see the content of the disc with Windows Explorer even if you don't have the software player installed at all. Not in my case.

 

Whoa! Windows doesn't even see it?

Sorry, looks like it is H/W and I stand corrected.

What I might do is breathe/fog up the disk before I inserted it in the player and/or try the Roxio BD player 10 to really see if it 'jars' something in the O/S while it is installing and lets everything play nice. Sorry, can't think of any more suggestions, but hope you do resolve this painlessly.