HP CD Writer PLUS 7200i problems

[ventrical]

Hi all,

Been working with tech/electronics for 40 years plus. I too have the CD burner in question.

I am not "officially" advising anyone what to do , but, what I had to do was inspect the laser aperature first. Most CD lasers get real "dirty" over time. Conventional cleaning methods do not always work. The law of optics is , that if the lens is dirty it will reflect light back into the aperature. Most CDs have a defeat for this , a thermal sensor and the CD will comletely shut down. It will apppear as if it is completely broken - in some cases it will not even power up. This is the laser logic protecting itself.

With the HP 7200 I had to disassemble it and clean the laser lens manualy because there were caked particles on there. Using 99% isopropynol and a cue tip I was able to make the eye as clean as a whistle.

Then , reinstalled HP7200 and voila' - power up.

Of course , to do such a cleaning one has to be a little bit technically inclined. As far as I know it is perfectly legal to clean your laser in this way and being a technician , it is a prerequisite to clean laser aperatures.

Dirty laser aperatures are not always the cause for malfunctioning CD witers but 80% of the time this will be a good resolve.

*note* The HP 7200 is a real tough device to open and inspect. Especially the ones made in Hungary. Patience required. In some cases torx screw drivers needed to disassemble. Some CD cleaning disks may work just as well , but, if there are dust particles caked on the surface from the heat produced from the laser, then the above described proceedure may be needed.

add-on Info:

Dirty laser aperatures will also produce bad read-backs. The smallest of paticles like smoke from ciggarettes or just ordinary dust will cause diffusion on a read/write.

To verify this , even with newer CD burners, you can take a lens (high-powered) and inspect the laser eye visually. (of course all power off to protect eyes ). The eye will appear to have a sort of pocked marked appearance. Even a smal speck can cause a bad read. Unlike harddrives, Cd-burners are not hermetically sealed and dust is always passing over the eye as air and dust are drawn in from the fan of the power supply in the back of your PC. Ciggarette smoke will leave an invisible film on the eye. It needs to be cleaned off. CD cleaner disks usually work , but not in all cases.

As a previous poster wrote -- it is much cheaper to buy a new one these days - but , however , there are a lot of high-quality CD burners out there that are worth the effort to clean the laser appeture manually.

Also , apply only gentle rotating pressure on the eye with the saturated cue tip. The rest will evaporate quickly.

Thanks for all other helpful info.

regards,

ventrical