Thinkpads Forum

My drive will not eject when I hit the button. Any ideas on what causes this, and what I can do to remedy?

Try this. Go to My Computer and right click on your optical drive. Choose Properties, DLA tab, and uncheck: Enable DLA on your drives. (something like that anyway).

I don't have a tab that says DLA.

Does your button work after a reboot? What about while your computer is first powering up? If this is true, then the problem is software. If the button never works, then that indicates a problem with your drive. There are ways to open a stuck drive with a paper clip I believe, but I have not needed to do that myself.

If the problem is software, it is most likely caused by packet writing software such as DLA, Nero InCD, Roxio DirectCD (if they still call it that). Look at all your CD or DVD burning software, as one of them is probably the culprit. Backup software can also cause this. Perhaps Rescue and Recovery or Microsoft Backup if they happen to be running. Away Manager might be something else to check if you have it installed.

GomJabbar wrote:Try this. Go to My Computer and right click on your optical drive.

Is there an "Eject" option there and does it work? If not, then as GomJabbar says the problem can be software or hardware. A straightened out paper clip can be inserted into the small hole usually located right next to the drive's eject button.

doesn't open after reboot, or during start up. The light blinks, but nothing happens.

kduniverse wrote:doesn't open after reboot, or during start up. The light blinks, but nothing happens.

Sounds like the tray may be binding. Remove the cd drive from the bay (assuming this a thinkpad). Gently insert the end of a paper clip in the tiny hole on the front plate of the drive and push in (gently) until the drive pops out. Check for distortions on the top and/or bottom of the drive and also check that the rubber gasket on the door of the drive is not binding. Move the tray in and out to see that it operates smoothly.

moves in and out freely. gasket looks alright as well.

if this is some type of software issue, what can I check?

Have you tried ejecting the tray from within "My Computer" by right clicking the DVD Drive and then selecting "Eject" from the drop down menu?

yes, it did not work. the light on the drive blinks, but nothing else.

kduniverse wrote:yes, it did not work. the light on the drive blinks, but nothing else.

Give paper clip or nail cutter clips a try. It used to happen on my desktop back in the days, the problem was merely that the drive used to get jammed for my once carelessness, I one time ended up inserting two disks in the drive simultaneously that blocked it for good till I tried some engineering tools to open it up but the worst thing was it made it hard to close afterwards.

In order to determine if it is NOT a software issue I can suggest this:

- start the system and press the F12 key (I'm assuming we are talking about a T43 system or at least some kind of Thinkpad, yes?)
- when you see the boot device menu on the screen, press the eject button on the CD/DVD drive
- if it works, then something in Windows is locking your drive
- if it does not work, then there's something wrong with your drive
- you can safely power off the system at this point or select your hard drive to continue booting

Ok. this morning i needed to use the drive. what i did was eject the entire drive, blow some air inside, and check the gasket. the gasket is just falling apart, so i cleaned off the crumbled pieces, and put it back. works fine now.

thanks for all the help everyone.

.....and it's back. Drive won't open anymore. This is annoying and frustrating.

Either try and fix that gasket, or time for a new drive...
In one of my PCs the drive kept opening itself no matter what I did.
I took it out, opened it up, and found that one of the rails, on which the LED slides, had come unstuck.
Put it back in, and that was it, works great again.

I went to the lenovo site and tried to download the latest DLA app. I'm getting an error message: Setup cannot find a valid version of this software to upgrade.

Does anyone have a link to the app? I'm assuming my issues are because of this.

Any particular reason why you are not telling us exactly which model ThinkPad you have?
It would help us even more if you would put this info in your Signature (in the 'Profile' section).

T43