Optical Drive Scratching Discs

I know that moving a notebook while a disc is spinning in the drive is never a good thing, especially when you hear the disc contacting the drive. However, i've owned various notebooks before and have never had a disc severely scratched - to the point that it cannot be read anymore - by an optical drive.
I feel that the metal around the laser head should be a little lower, as i can even see scratches on the metal from contact from various discs. Is this a design flaw in the Pioneer drive i have or something else?

 

Well, did this happened to most of the disks you put in or it just happened to 1 disc?
I would recommend you to check the CD/DVD first because some poorly manufactured disks are thicker at some regions than normal ones (although this is very rare). Nonetheless, since your disk is scratched from the bottom, it is probably caused by a defective optical drive (not a design flaw because it is the first time I've heard this happening to a CR series). If you are still covered by warranty, I recommend you to contact sony asap and have the optical drive replaced.
I hope that helps and best of luck

 

It looks like I have this in my TZ. It looks like if I tilt the laptop even slightly, there are severe circular scratches on the outer edge of the disc. I don't even hear the grinding noise you would hear when tilting the drive whilst its running.

I rarely use it but its still concerning, its been a while since I used the drive, need to test it again to be sure.

 

multiple disks, same pattern.
as Rahulnirmal said, it scores the outer parts of the disk and because they are circular it renders the disk undreadable. I guess i will have to contact sony.

You are certainly right about the tilting. I mean im just shifting it in my lap a little and it gets scratched.

Its scratched to the point where you can feel it with your fingernails.

 

I just thought i'd write a little update. Apparantly sony works differently than Dell does in terms of replacing parts. I have two choices, pay 150 to have on site servicing or send in my computer to them and not have it for a full 1.5 working weeks so they can diagnose and confirm the problem and replace the drive.
Being a college student and without a backup computer, I obviously cant do the latter until break...and im not looking to loosing 150 dollars of which i dont really have.
I liked dell and how they always sent out the replacement parts first, then i'd send them the defective part back - they would test, and if the part wasnt faulty, i would end up paying for it instead. It's so much more efficient!

Anyways i did purchase an extended protection plan from Fry's and hopefully i can bring it to them and they can replace it for me. I know their policy includes a loaner, which would help a ton.