I bought this DVD recorder on clearance from Radio Shack, for $99, back in about 2006 or '07, and it's been great as a VCR replacement, particularly using the built-in 80 gig hard drive.
But I read on the web from some owners of Accurian ADR-3223 DVD recorders how their recorder trays wouldn't open anymore, so they couldn't insert or remove a disk....I thought "I'm sure glad mine's not having that problem!"...but, lo, and behold, the next time I tried to use mine, the tray wouldn't open !! DOOH !! It turns out I had left a disk in the unit for months, and now couldn't remove it. This post is a report on what the cause turned out to be.
Unfortunately, there's no eject hole to mechanically eject this tray, as with many CD/DVD drives, so I had to completely disassemble the entire unit. The drive can not be removed until the trim plate on the outside of the burner is removed...that turned out to be the hardest part of the job. All you can do is get a couple of flat-head screw drivers and pry the tray open enough to get ahold of both ends and pull up, sort of pivoting the trim strip from the bottom, and it'll slide/pop up and off. (It was a LOT of force, I was sure I was going to break the trim strip or the drive-tray while prying out, but it didn't break...maybe I was lucky!)
After this, the drive can easily be removed. Then remove the screws underneath that hold the thin sheet metal RF shields on the top and bottom, remove those, then the 4 screws holding the plastic cover on the top of the drive...at which point you'll be looking at the inner tray, or, in my case, the disk I had left in there months ago.
I powered up and actuated the Eject button a few times and watched what happened. The center spindle could not extract itself from the center of the disk. I pried the disk up/out by force, and discovered a little foam ring on the tray, around the disk spindle, had rotted away, leaving a ring of adhesive, that had then glued itself to the disk I had left in there !! DOOH !! I scraped away the adhesive from the tray spindle, used some mineral spirits on a Q-tip to dissolve the traces left behind so there was no chance of this happening again, put it all together, and it's working fine again!
One extra bit I did before reassembly....I made a mark on the tray directly above the Eject button, while the trim strip was still off, but after reinserting the drive (without screws), and estimated the point behind the front panel where the electric Eject button on the drive is, and drilled out an Eject hole through the front panel...not that it would have helped with a disk glued into the tray, but you never know when an Eject hole might come in handy otherwise.
That Accurrian is a Lighton clone. It is much as a 5045 woeh a 80 gig HDD It can not be hacked and is CP compliant It had a DDW 8x drive but some may have had a DDW 4x. For what ever reason these v drives were prone to failure . As the liteon/ilo
The real advantage of it was the HDD but the unit will not operate without a recognized drive or without one
All liteon drives to the 1635 will l operate fine on all functions. Many users have replaced the dries that are recognized and allow use of thf HDD but will not FF
It was a bargain at $99
I have one that is used by others and has a replaced drive. It work?s very well for his use
I and others have explained a drive replacement on other forme
Remember It is a liteon clone and any reference to the liteon 5045 or ilo RHD04 is relevant
Its worth an effort.
The eject hole is a big help to a number of users and I have a post on its location, on another forums. It was a long time back and forget its location. It sounded as the disk jammed when the spindle was rotating, resulting in a heat build up.
A said the unit will not operate without a recognized DVD drive.
I still have about 25 of the original DDW drives, Many will still work ok but I considered them unreliable in burning etc But are recognized.
