cd-rw question, can i scratch the laser?

[bagaki]

i put a cd in my cdrw (yamaha crw-f1) and was going to rip it to mp3. It started fine, but when it hit the 3rd song, i got a timing error. I opened the drive and the disk was dislodged from the tray and scratched in a circular pattern. The disc is brand new and i did not even get a chance to listen to it. could the disk have been scratched from my laser? the disk is just scratched on the bottom and it is in a circular pattern like i said above. i can buy another disc, but i am wondering if i damaged the drive. The drive will play cd's fine, but i have not tried it with burning. I am worried because yamaha no longer makes cdrw drives.

thanks for any input.

bagaki

 

[Lord Evermore]

The lens for the laser can indeed be scratched. However it may have been simply the edge of the drive tray or the center clamp/motor that scratched the CD; it would be very difficult for the disc to rub against the lense unless the scratch is at the edge of the disc, because the disc can't tilt enough in the small space inside the drive to hit the lens if it's close to the center. If it's reading CD's alright, the lens is probably fine. You might want to blow some compressed air into the drive (holding it vertical so that the drive tray opens toward the ground) to make sure there aren't any particles of the CD plastic or the aluminum substrate inside, and run a CD lens cleaner disc through it.

 

[bagaki]

thanks for the reply. i think by the pattern (starting from the inside and moving outward) and the width of the scratch that it was the center clamp/motor that did the damage.

bagaki

 

[BennyD]

Originally posted by: bagaki
thanks for the reply. i think by the pattern (starting from the inside and moving outward) and the width of the scratch that it was the center clamp/motor that did the damage.

bagaki

take the cd back and say it was like that when you got it home

if you ask for a replacement most places will believe you