That old DVD player from 2002 ate my disc and I lost a weekend fixing it

I dug out my ancient Toshiba DVD player to watch a movie and it just grabbed the disc and refused to spit it back out. Took me 4 hours with a paperclip and a YouTube tutorial from some guy in Poland to get it working again. Has anyone else had a device just decide to swallow your media whole?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_anthony29d ago

Nah, that's user error. Old stuff was built better, you just forced it.

angelarivera29d ago

That rubber roller being melted is wild. I have never seen that happen before. I thought those parts were supposed to last forever since they just sit inside the machine. It sounds like yours got super hot or just aged weird. That must have been a pain to clean up with the rubbing alcohol. I would have probably just tossed the whole thing out.

gibson.morgan29d ago

No kidding, right? I had a 2003 Sony DVD player that literally ate my copy of The Matrix... it just went "rrrrrRRRRRR" and sucked the disc right in and never gave it back. Took me a whole evening with a flathead screwdriver and a lot of swearing to get the top off and pry the disc out. And of course the little rubber roller thing was all melted and gooey, had to clean that with rubbing alcohol. Those old machines were tanks but they had some weird personality quirks for sure.