[PLUG] Thinkpad DVD drive failure, maybe

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:19:12 -0700
John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:

> I think the DVD drive in my Thinkpad is kaput. Actually, not the
> drive. I think it is the connector in the back that the drive plugs
> into that is flaky. It has been temperamental for some time. I bought
> a refurbished drive that worked better at first, but now it won't work
> either. I can't get anything to mount - DVD, CD, new media, nada. The
> light flashes for a while, but then stops and nothing appears
> in /media. I tried mount and nothing interesting appeared. I also
> tried dmesg and got no clues.
> 
> Before assuming that I need to buy a new computer:
> 
> 1) is there anything at the command line or otherwise that I could do
> to see what is actually happening?

Give the lsblk(8) command a try.  It should give you a display
something like this:


[dales at zothique ~]$ lsblk
NAME                          MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE  RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb                             8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sdb1                          8:17   0   512M  0 part /boot
 .
 .  <snipped for brevity> 
 .
sdc                             8:32   0 298.1G  0 disk 
└─sdc1                          8:33   0 298.1G  0 part /srv/musicdata
sr0                            11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 
sr1                            11:1    1   6.1G  0 rom
[dales at zothique ~]$

sr0 is my desktop's internal DVD drive.  It's empty, but still shows
the "1024M" size entry.  sr1 is a Sony portable DVD drive that
connects via USB; it has a video DVD in it.  Since sr0 is always
connected, it always has an entry.  The USB drive only shows up if
it's plugged in.  If your internal DVD doesn't show up, my guess would
be that your hardware is faulty.

Another thing you can try is watch /var/log/messages while you insert
a disk in the DVD drive.  Use "sudo tail -f /var/log/messages" at the
command line.  This will show the last few lines of the file, then
watch the file and print any new lines that get added.  Use <ctrl-c>
to exit when you're done.


> 2) I looked at the service manual for my T61 and cannot figure out the
> drawings. Is it possible to replace the connector that the optical
> drive connects to? Has anyone ever been deep inside that part of a
> T61?

Ow.  I don't have a T61, but I did have a T40 and still have a Dell
Inspiron.  In both of them the DVD drive connector is soldered
directly to the motherboard.  I imagine that the T61 is no different.
If you have a very fine-tip soldering iron, it's possible to solder a
new one on.  The fun part is taking out the old one.  The traces and
pads on a laptop's motherboard are _very_ fine and delicate.  It's all
too easy to tear them up without wanting to.  My recommendation would
be to buy another used T61 and use this one for parts.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

--Dale

--
"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them
the usual way.  This happens to us all the time with computers,
and nobody thinks of complaining."    -- Jeff Raskin