Why CD-RW draw opens sprodically when not in use?

Question

Every once in awhile the CD-RW draw opens althougth I am not using it or I have not clicked eject. Some program must be doing this but I can not even guess which one might be doing it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi there:
There are quite a number of things that can cause a CD tray to suddenly start to behave strange.
The first group ofproblems are PURE mechanics - the button on the front of the panel can be jammed or moved slightly, and is not "clicking" with the full range of movement. Push the putton, and see if it actually moves a solid click.
Then, there are fancy computer case doors that open and close ON TOP of the real tray, so that the fake computer case button is not aligned properly, and is pushing too close to the real CD button - same results - the tray opens on its own. Also, the swinging fake door can be un-aligned, and cuasing problems.
Finally, there is the actual "OPEN and CLOSE" switches inside the CD itself, that let the CD circuits that drive the Open/Close motor, know when the tray is in the open or closed position. If these TINY, delicate, little switches are slightly out of alignment, CD tray can stay open, refuse to open, or open and close on its own. These can be damaged by someone forcing the CD tray too far out, pulling on it when it is closed, or stopping it from comming out when the motor is trying to open, etc. This is a tricky problem to fix, and you have to diss- assemble the unit to get at the tiny switches - usually two strips of copper/ brass with plastic ends that bend the metal open or closed.
You will want to try all other sources of problems before investigating this one...

The SECOND group of problems has to do with software - either the
operating system, CD tray controller programs installed with CD software such as Burners or Music Players, and... even the CD general DRIVERS in the various Windows Operating Systems ( Win 95 A, 95 B, 95C, Win 98, win98SE, Win ME, WinNT, Win2000, Win XP, etc. [ you do not mention which system you are using ]) You can UNINSTALL the Win XXX driver for the CD in the SYSTEM, Hardware panel in CONTROL PANEL, and see what happens when you re-install the driver on re-boot.
Each CD manufacturer also has FIRMWARE upgrades for the controller chip on the CD that runs the CD iteslf. This is somewhat dangerous to update, since if ANYTHING goes wrong, the entire CD unit is inoperative. You can go to the website of the Manufacturer of the CD unit, and type in the Model number ( usually printed clearly on the top label of the unit , and sometimes well described in the SYSTEM DEVICES section of the CONTROL panel ), and see what the manufacturer has to say about problems, or updates, or drivers, or FIRMWARE Updates. Sownload the Updates and instructions, but DO NOT use them until you try the all the simple methods first...
OTHER SOFTWARE is the Virus, trojan, worm, etc. type, and I would recommend getting 3 programs listed below, all FREE, and running them to see what you have. Some reports state that not all CD tray opening programs/ viruses are detected, so this is just a start.

SPYBOT search and Destroy

http://www.tucows.com/preview/310138

AD AWARE FREE Personal

http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html

AVG Free anti-Virus

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Once you have tried these, if the problem still persists, you have many other avenues to try - including the reliable Tech method - replace the CD unit with another one - beg borrow or steal any CD unit - old ones are $5 in any computer refurbish place, and see if the " other " CD unit behaves the same way. If you put on in, make certain that there are no other fancy CASE doors or buttons near the unit.
If the unit opens randomly, then you have a definite SOFTWARE problem, be it a CD burner, or Music player or whatever, or,,,, a virus/ joke / trojan or such. At least then you know what to look for...
If the unit DOES NOT open, then you have a mechanical problem with the buttons on the CD unit, or on the CASE covers and buttons, or on the switches on the CD tray Open/Close switches.


On the WEB, common problems are listed, typically with the dialogues below:


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http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/april-fools/cdtray/default.aspx


Randomly Opening CD Tray

Jeff Key

The best April Fools' Day pranks are those that can be enjoyed by both the fooler and the foolee. This short article covers one of the simpler pranks in the "Why is my computer doing that?" category: the malfunctioning CD-ROM drive that opens at random intervals. This prank is best used in a cube farm where multiple instances can be easily deployed and monitored.
The Prank

The prank itself is very simple: a little program that, once launched, waits n minutes, then opens the CD-ROM drive door. It then continually opens the door at random intervals until the user closes the application. (Both n and the random interval constraint can be modified by the fooler via the application's config file.)

The most difficult part of the prank is getting the application onto the foolee's computer.
The Inspiration

I've recently begun using the Google Web Accelerator, which speeds up your Web browsing. Or so they say. The only indication that it is doing anything is a report of how much time it has saved me:

If you're reading this article, you probably have an idea how the Accelerator works. However, 99 percent of its users don't. They take its word that it's working, and this trust is a primary component of our evil deed.
"Web Speedster"

Our prank appears to be similar to the Web Accelerator. Once launched, it sits in the notification area until the user closes it. Unbeknownst to the user, the Web Speedster is the source of the randomly opening CD-ROM drive door. The initial CD-ROM door opening is delayed so the foolee doesn't make the connection with the Speedster.

The application itself is tiny — less than a dozen lines of code. The most interesting part is how the door is opened, since the .NET Framework doesn't natively provide this functionality.

The .NET Framework has almost everything most people need to create great applications, but sometimes developers need to access unmanaged functionality provided by other libraries, including Windows itself. Platform Invoke, or P/Invoke, is the gateway to these libraries. Methods in other libraries are defined with external method declarations like the following, which lets us call the mciSendString method in Windows WinMM DLL:

Visual C#

[DllImport("winmm.dll")]
static extern Int32 mciSendString(String command, StringBuilder buffer, Int32 bufferSize, IntPtr hwndCallback);

Visual Basic

Declare Function mciSendStringA Lib "winmm.dll" (command As String, _
buffer As StringBuilder, bufferSize As Int32, hwndCallback As IntPtr) As Int32

(PInvoke.NET is a great resource for finding these declarations.)

Calls to these methods are done just like calls to "normal" methods:

mciSendString("set CDAudio door open", null, 0, IntPtr.Zero);

And that is all that's required to make a function call into Windows. Easy!
Summary

While the .NET Framework is huge, it doesn't do everything. However, if Windows can do what you need, chances are very good that you can get to that functionality with P/Invoke.

The next step is to compile the program, send it out to unsuspecting foolees (ideally within earshot), and let the fun begin!

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060330.gtss4mar30/BNStory/Technology/Troubleshooter


CD tray keeps opening and closing by itself, happens with two different drives

Globe and Mail Update

QUESTION: I have a Compaq Presario 5008CA PC that I purchased new in 2001. The operating system is Windows Millennium. From time to time, the CD writer tray goes berserk, opening and closing on its own at different speeds. I have been told that it is a virus, or that the CD writer needs to be replaced and finally, to delete the driver and allow it to find a new driver on restart. I have replaced the CD Writer on the say-so of Best Buy personnel, and the new one started flipping out after a week, so I returned it and got a refund. We are running Norton Internet Security, and Spy Sweeper. Looking forward to your answer...

Ron

ANSWER: If you have a decorative bezel or door over your drives, that may be the problem. Sometimes the door presses on the drive release switch. Decorative bezels, meanwhile, have a spring-loaded extension button that goes through the extra case material to press the drive's actual release mechanism. I've seen a faulty spring on this type of arm cause a drive tray to go in and out at random, come out part-way and go back in, etc. — all without anyone touching the button itself. The effect is almost as if the drive is possessed. Kind of spooky when it happens, but fixing it is usually a simple matter of adjusting the spring or just removing the bezel completely (since it's only decorative).

Alternatively, you may have a trojan on your machine that either fools with the drive automatically, or gives remote access to the drive so that someone else can toy with your machine over your network connection. "OfficePoltergeist" is a program that pranksters love to use to do this. NetBUS is another example of a remote tool from many years ago that could play with your CDROM trays. Your antivirus or spyware scans should be able to detect this, though... It is possible you have a new trojan of this sort that is not yet detected by antivirus software...

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also try downloading the firmware for the drive. My drive always had problems opening. I upgraded the firmware and it fixed the problem.

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WIN98
The CD Rom on my machine opens of its own accord even if no CD is in the drive.This has only happened recently when games were installed but i am unable to find out which game caused the problem please help

restart in ms-dos mode>at prompt type scanreg/restore>choose an earlier date that has been started>next prompt type win.

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CD-R/RW tray opens and closes repeatedly

Digg it!
I have a compaq 5004US ( 1.1ghz amd atholon,384mb ram, 60gb HD with windows ME with a dvd drive and a cd-r/rw drive.) A lil more then a week ago the cd tray started engaging and opening and closing all by itself. I have tried numerous things to troubleshoot but must admit I am not very puter savy or literate. I tried system restore which only caused more problems ( upon reboot a screen came up saying unable to load NAV ) so i had to go in safe mode and uninstall norton systemworks prof edition to get puter to boot up. After that I decided to go ahead and load systemworks 2003 in as I had it and was only waiting for 2002 to expire. I d/l all the updates for it and ran virusscan and came up clean...I went to trendmicro and did a free scan there and it found w32.klez.H and w95.hybris.worm and w32.sircam.worm and then suddenly norton popped up with them as well after just completing a scan with norton...weird. They were quarantined by norton and then I deleted them I then rescanned at trendmicro and it found files in system restore that were unaccessible so I disabled system restore to purge the files.
I thought perhaps that was what was making cd drawer go crazy but it still is acting up! some things I have tried are: 1) rebooting the system from the recovery cd, 2) hitting f-10 key at startup to get into bios menu to load setup defaults, 3) deleted the cdrom from device mgr and rebooted, 4) bought a cd drive cleaner and ran that . there may have been other things I forgot to mention.
I cannot locate the driver on here to try and manually reload it as someone suggested that and also went to compaq and philips websites looking for a driver to d/l but no luck ( the cdrom is a Philips CDD4801 CD-R/RW ). Any suggestions or do i just need to go buy a new cd-r/rw to install?? ( that's if I can find the nerve to attempt that on my own! ) I bought this puter in 2001 and have rarely used the cd drive.
sorry this is soooo long!

If there is a door on the front of the bay with the drive in it, open the door. See if that stops the ghostly activation.
The buttons on that door have to have the CD-ROM set back in the bay just far enough so that the button works. If you have the CD-ROM drive set to far forward, it will constantly open and close like you have ghosts.

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On start-up my CDROM opens and closes and remains in the open position. It will not read CDs...just opens again. i've tried switching from cable select to master on the jumper, i've tried changing the IDE cable, the device manager says the IDE controller is working but it also says the CD is working. I recently added a second hard drive to the primary IDE cable, but they don't even share a controller so I'm not sure where the conflict could come in. I'm at a loss....please help!!!!

hey paul, i still have this problem but i've found a work around. it seemed that whenever i changed the hardware in the pc, the cd tray would do it's little routine again. i finally tried starting the computer with only power, keyboard, mouse and monitor (just the bare necessities) plugged in. i found that the cd-rom tray behaved as it should. then i would add one more component (for instance the printer), shutting down every time between each one. eventually they would all be plugged in and the drive would still be on it's best behavior. i have tried a new motherboard and switching out the power supply but the problem always comes back whenever i alter the hardware. just fussy, i guess, but at least it's cool until i have to alter the box again. hope this helps, rhonda

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Somewhere above, you should have an answer or two that will help you SOLVE the problem.

Hope this helps!

robin

Answer 2

There are two possibilities, either the drive is skipping and will die soon or you have a virus or backdoor which plays with you.

So start by a full system scan (you can go and clean your system for free at http://housecall.trendmicro.com ) and if it doesn't find anything try a different drive.

Of course if you don't feel comfortable doing any of these steps, you should see a professional.

Answer 3

there's a small hollow interior the front of your CD participant close to the eject button. Take a paper clip or something like that and positioned it interior the hollow and gently push whilst it stops. this could be a instruction manual launch of the CD rigidity drawer. wish that helps.

Answer 4

That's an interesting question!

Answer 5

The drive may also be going bad.

Answer 6

Need more info to answer