Thinkpads Forum

I have a GSA-4083N-Z dvd burner. I wanted to clean it, so I took it out of the slot, and then opened the tray. After cleaning it, I closed the tray, but the tray wouldn't go in all the way. Turns out the ribbon cable had gotten stuck on the outside of the drive, instead of going back inside the drive, so it probably got squeezed in ways it shouldn't. I now see that there are 2 lines on the ribbon cable. See this image:

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1543 ... arrows.jpg

Can anyone look at their drive and tell me if the lines are supposed to be there or not? I'm hoping those lines aren't the result of the ribbon bending when I tried to close the tray. I'll do some testing to make sure the drive still works OK, although I've read that a damaged ribbon cable might result in intermittent problems and not outright failure. In the meantime, I'm interested in knowing if those lines should be there or not.

Looks normal if you ask me, but I'm no expert.

Looks OK to me too!

Randomly checked some of my optical drives and found one (LG CRN-8241U; CD drive) that has a similar "discoloration" in one section as compared to the rest of the ribbon cable. It feels like it's another layer of Mylar that's been wrapped around the cable, most likely to provide some additional strength as that portion may be curling up when the tray is closed.

Thanks guys. I also test burned a CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R and then compared the data with the originals, and it seems to be working fine.