We visited M'Ellen yesterday. Shawn helped her work on her computer and she gave us some new games for the kids.

Unfortunately, somehow, sometime the day before the kids had injured their computer in such a way that the CD-ROM drive was no longer recognizing the cd's. The drawer went in and out fine but it wouldn't play anything (a lot of action, but no results). Shawn was busy on his online League game and wasn't at all interested in trying to fix it but the kids were dying to play the new game.

I will admit I know VERY little about computers. I clicked around for a bit and found that according to it's own brain the computer was sure the drive was completely operational (denial). Shawn was pretty sure that the kids had destroyed the drive beyond repair so I felt safe removing it. I guess I figured if it's already destroyed then I can't destroy it further. So with no help from my husband I opened the case, removed the drive, took it to my table and took the whole thing apart.

It's a very freeing feeling to dismantle something so foreign. I have zero knowledge of the workings of the inside of a CD-ROM drive. I know there's a laser and that the little spinny thing spins. I also now know that there is a plastic curlicue thing that spins to move the laser and that it's lubricated with blue goo. I would have never suspected there was SUPPOSED to be blue goo inside the CD-ROM drive! :-) I was placing my trust in my instincts and basic knowledge of mechanics. Like if something is supposed to slide and it is being blocked by something else that is likely a problem. If a piece of plastic is broken, that's a problem. If there's a foreign object inside the case, that's a problem. Stuff like that.

So what did I find? Nothing!

Nothing was broken nothing appeared to be dislodged and there were no pennies inside (common problem with Aiden). The only thing I did find was a tiny flake of reflective plastic which looked like a piece of the shiny part of a CD. But it was so small I don't think it could have caused the problem. The bearings inside the spinny part were noisy but seemed to still be doing their job.

So I carefully put the drive back together, reinstalled it in the case, put the shell back on, and plugged everything back in. Would you believe the drive works now?

Apparently I AM a computer genius! Well, that or the only thing wrong was a loose cord and I'm just really lucky I was able to take the drive apart and put it back together without causing any real damage. But I'm sticking to the computer genius theory!