Warning For Bad Blu-Ray Discs
You probably never guess what happened to me today!
I was installing a program from an older burned 25GB BluRay Disc that I had burned in the recent past at 4 speed. And after a half hour or so reading that disc I suddenly heard a very loud bang! It really scared the hell out of me!
It was so extremely loud that I first thought that it had something to do with a power surge or a blowing up electrolyte in one of my devices. But I then noticed that it was the top BluRay drive that had a completely to pieces exploded Verbatim white inkjet writeable 25GB disc inside. The disc I was reading from. So when I opened that tray I saw the pieces that came out and I then immediately switched off my quad-core P5KPL-AM SE computer. And I removed the LiteOn HS16NS55 player/burner from my desktop case. Next photo shows the remains of my 25GB Verbatim BD disc.
I examined the text on my disc to remember what data I now had lost. Sadly these last days I had more discs lost while burning to Primeon 2x-8x 50GB BD-DL discs, but those I could easily repeat by burning again to Verbatim 50GB BD-DL discs. Apparently even if we upgrade our older burner drives to newer firmware versions, they still too often fail with non Verbatim discs. They say only 3 trusted brands are still produced, and Verbatim and MediaRange are produced at the same manufacturing line.
But what happened today shows why we must be very careful with discs that turn out to be very brittle! I now lost a Driverpack, plus the drivers of my Asus desktop, some of my Dreambox programs, and some Dean Martin songs. I easily could break the remaining pieces into more smaller pieces without using any real force with my fingers! I knew it had happened to others but never expected it to happen to my discs, or my drives!
Next photos show the labels on my 2016 Liteon BH16NS55 M-Disc compatible drive!
After I carefully removed all the remaining pieces from my drive and cleaned and lubricated the transport parts with very small drops of Gleit Leicht (silicon based spray), I gave the drive a test run with another previously failed writing without verify errors Primeon 50GB BD-DL disc.
I was very lucky that the drive still was working fine and so both lasers (one blu, and one red) were not damaged by the internal blast. Only one plastic case holder was broken but was easily fixed with some drops of superglue. I believe this disc exploding test once was done by the guys of myth busters years ago. They found out that this really could happen in drives at today’s reading speeds at 52x and higher. But probably also depends on the quality of the material the disc is made of. Following photos show the internals of my Bluray burner before cleaning.
Next photo shows the force that had broken one of the plastic case holders.
Notice the small white particles still inside on the tray from the disc blast!
So if you ever find discs as brittle as my above disc , do not use them in your higher speed player/burners! Or maybe better not at all! It will keep you away from a lot of sorrow and needless repairs. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Also because these Bluray Burners are still too expensive to simply ignore!
Albert van Bemmelen, Weert, The Netherlands.
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Note: You can read his previous repair article in the below link:
https://jestineyong.com/homemade-testers-were-used-in-testing-power-supply-components/
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Roger Wellesley-Smith
October 24, 2019 at 8:51 am
I have made at least 3,000 DVDs from recorded, free to air television programs, without the slightest problem of any kind.
My PVR is a high end Panasonic machine which is able to both read and burn, BluRay and standard (including double-layer) DVDs.
I have used many types of media, both branded and the cheapest generic blank discs, all with similar, indistinguishable results.
I suspect your problem lies with your hardware; and not the media you've been using..
beh
October 24, 2019 at 1:18 pm
A very interesting and strange experience ALBERT thanks for sharing ......beh
Albert van Bemmelen
October 25, 2019 at 3:08 am
Indeed Beh! I really believe this is a problem that has something to do with the resonance frequency of the material the Bluray disc was made of.
And most people may think it was just a bad disc. But I'm very sure that all these inkjet printable Bluray discs are likely to explode in our burners at higher reading drive speeds because of the same design flaw in the production process!
Albert van Bemmelen
October 24, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Thanks for your comment Roger. Although perhaps the impression had been given that my Blu Ray Disc was bad before it exploded in my drive, it certainly wasn't! And there was nothing wrong with my LiteOn Drive!
The fast rotating BluRay disc must have burst at a certain speed and some kind of resonance! In a way that bridges were destroyed and buildings collapse. And keep in mind it was not a DVD but a heavier BluRay with special inkjet coating on it!
I myself also never had any problem with any of my 5000+ DVD's before neither!
Maurizio C.
October 24, 2019 at 4:15 pm
over the last time, I have experienced the fault (no disk error) of a number of DVD players/recorders (good brands), some of which have never recorded a disk or even hardly used! Lenses have been repeatedly cleaned with isopropanol without success. I suspect this to do just to environment dust on mechanical parts. Do you have similar experience and suggestions on how to recover them?
Mihai
October 25, 2019 at 1:33 am
Hello Maurizio !
I had this kind of problem with Asus dvd writer, don't recognize the discs. I cleaned the lens, but same problem. When i looked closely, i found warn last pin from the lift mechanism. Conclusion: the mechanism who lift up the lens and the motor is the culprit.
Albert van Bemmelen
October 25, 2019 at 3:34 am
Sorry Maurizio, I never had any problems with DVDs or CDs before. Only a lot of problems with certain BluRay discs that came from spindles from well known manufacturer's that became useless in the first seconds of burning data to them. According to the seller Opus supplies a problem that relates to the version of firmware the BluRay Burner had in recognizing the right disc parameters.
But as mentioned in my article upgrading my burners to newest available versions still didn't help when for instance Primeon Discs were used either! In the end I had to throw at least 25 BluRay discs in the Bin! They already were finalized right in the first seconds after the faulty burning process ended. Why I prefer Verbatim BluRay 25 and 50GB Discs. But they are as mentioned able to explode!
Parasuraman S
October 24, 2019 at 8:26 pm
Yes, I too agree with Roger Wellesley-Smith. I too have burnt several hundreds of DVDs and CDs. No such breakages. It could be a wrong load or something to do with the hardware. Anyhow, it is shocking!
Albert van Bemmelen
October 25, 2019 at 3:17 am
Thanks Parasuraman, but as I already explained to Roger to take into account that I wasn't speaking about DVD's but about the special inkjet coated Verbatim 25 GB BluRay discs that are heavier and not identical material wise to plain DVDs!
Like you I also never had any problem with burning or reading those lighter thinner DVDs or CDs! (Plus 5000+ of them). THEY NEVER EXPLODED like the Bluray I mentioned in my article!
Justice
October 24, 2019 at 9:13 pm
Yes it is possible that both the hardware and the media could be the culprit but thanks anyway for the expirience shared logically, that was wonderful.
Devon Wilson
October 26, 2019 at 4:14 am
Thanks a whole lot for sharing your invaluable experience.
Robert Calk Jr.
October 27, 2019 at 5:50 am
Thanks Albert! I have never heard of that problem before.
Albert van Bemmelen
October 27, 2019 at 8:39 pm
I'm sure Robert that you are familiar with the powerful effect that resonance can have on in same frequency trembling things. That is what must have happened to my previous not brittle at all Bluray disc. Afterwards the material resembles that of broken glass. The disc probably started to break and then it accellerated because of the centrifugal force and hit the plastic case when it no longer was held in position by the turntablemotor. My drive luckily still works as if nothing had happened. But I now no longer will use those inkjet printable Bluray discs if I don't have to.
Robert Calk Jr.
October 29, 2019 at 2:19 am
Hi Albert. I am glad that your drive is still working. My CB radio stopped working right before I became disabled and had to quit truck driving. I remembered it later after I started learning electronics repair for my hobby and took it apart to find out what happened to it.
I found a 1/4 watt resistor mounted vertically on a board that had the long lead snapped in half about halfway down the lead. I removed the resistor and the broken lead and examined the broken areas of the leads under my microscope. This was before I started writing articles.
The breaks looked like the lead had been bent back and forth many, many times until it snapped apart. I talked to some people on forums, and I might have asked Mr. Yong about it too, and everyone said that they had never heard of electricity doing something like that. But that is what the evidence showed: that the electricity going through that resistor caused some kind of resonance that caused the lead to vibrate and then snap apart.
I replaced the resistor with a 1/2 watt, and it worked just fine.
Albert van Bemmelen
November 2, 2019 at 4:47 am
Quite an interesting story Robert! Sorry to hear you had to quit your job because of physical problems. Maybe the vibrations in your truck had caused the resistor to break, or maybe the resistor which only was 1/4 Watt already was damaged when it was placed in the pcb of your CB radio? We never know.
Many years ago I was asked to repair someones CB radio. Sadly mobile phones have made CB radio less important now. It was nothing as interesting as your snapping resistor but it turned out that there was no signal in any of the amplifying transistor stages. In one of the stages an e-cap shorted to ground blocking the amplified signals from going through.
It took me some time before I found the culprit because I first concentrated on all the semiconductors. Which were not causing the problem. The owner was very glad I fixed it but probably also because I did it for free.
Robert Calk Jr.
November 3, 2019 at 8:25 am
Mobile phones can never replace a CB radio because there is no way of knowing all the phone numbers of strangers driving down the road or listening on the channel the radio is tuned to. People are always happy to see their devices repaired for free! Lol.