Anyone ever have a CD explode on them?

[ddeder]

My cousin called to tell me that the DVD drive on the computer I built for them does not work anymore. She said that the other day she was in the computer room but not actually working on the computer when she heard a funny noise come from the computer. She ignored it at the time but apparently the next time they tried to use the DVD drive it would not eject. Using a paperclip, I was able to open the drive and I found a CD inside that was broken into about 12 pieces with jagged edges. The DVD drive does not work anymore, not even a power light.

Questions:

Has anyone ever had this happen to them?
Will I be able to RMA this drive (only 6 months old)?

 

[ddeder]

I think it likely that the disk had a crack in it, maybe a hairline crack that would go unnoticed. Without a doubt though, this CD just demolished itself inside the drive. There are little pieces...

 

[JonnyBaseball]

Sounds like it was stressed beforehand. Odd that she wasn't working on it at the time though. I'm assuming the computer was in sleep mode maybe? Is it connected to any networks at all? Only thing i could begin to think of is that some autorun feature in the computer began while she was away from it and then that hairline break got...aggrivated, by getting spun. Stress was too much, broke up into the 12 jagged pieces. You should be able to get your money back for the drive, I don't see why not. Good Luck.

 

[Questi4110]

could be that the cd was worn out and when she put it in she didn;t completely get it inside the marked grooves and splitting it may have messed up the cd

look at the dvd player...it may have broken in the process

 

[corkyg]

By all the laws of physics and mechanics, the only way that could have happened was with a cracked or pre-broken CD, or one that was put into the tray a bit off center and then forced closed.

 

[Jesta]

We had a student stick a CD in one of our machines the other day with a tiny little crack on the outer edge of the cd. After he put it in and is spun up there was a terrible clattering sound. Shut down the machine and took out the drive because it would eject. Opened up the drive and the cd has shattered inside the drive. I have heard of this happening with cracked CD's in high speed drives. After cleaning all the particles out the drive worked fine again. So I now double check CD's for any little crack.

 

[thaneboy]

Wow cd broken to pieces, surely as they all say a small crack or so.

 

[LordEdmond]

yes sure have happend to be the OS disk from dell . bits shot out of the drive ( the drive still works fine ) . The funny thing was that the shattered bits where very brittle ?

the noise was dreadful bangs and clatter

 

[Mark R]

The forces on a CD spun in a high speed drive are extraordinary - any significant flaw in the disc can therefore cause mechanical failure.

You should be aware than a CD when spun up in a 52x CD-ROM drive experiences radial acceleration in excess of 8000 G.

 

[usstuscon12]

The problem with this was most likely that the CD was cold when inserted, and when the CD drive suddenly "heated up" the CD, or started to run, most likely it shattered the CD...it's like pouring hot water over a frozen glass.