OS disks unless you make them on DVDs.

Didi I have a quick question. As part of your instructions you say not to forget to remove the two small solder bridges on the ribbon cable of the new laser before soldering the shielding plate back on. Why is it necessary to remove these, and can you remove these while the laser is separate, before beginning the whole reassembling process? Thanks for your help.

You can remove the solder bridges at any time. I have no idea what these solder bridges are good for.

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OK thanks Didi, just needed to make sure. Now all that's left is to receive the laser so I can finally fix it and enjoy navigation again. Your DIY is very detailed, hopefully everything goes as planned

So it's nearly a month later, I attempted my fix and failed miserably =(.

It goes like this. I thought the problem was my laser. The symptoms fit. Immediately after my battery died my drive stopped reading my DVD map. Up until then I had been using a burned copy for 4 years or so with no problems, so I lost my original copy. All of the subsequent copies I burned would not work. The drive would say Please Wait, etc. I decided to update the firmware to v32, and when I inserted the CD that worked flawlessly. Finally I got my hands on a CD map version but these were from Eastern Europe. Obviously since I'm not in Europe these were of no use to me, but the CD loaded up fine, its just that all that was displayed was a blank map (obviously). This convinced me the laser was the problem. I ordered a laser on E-bay but when I took a closer look at the picture I realized it was the wrong one, so I ordered another laser from another vendor again. When I got both lasers, it turned out they were exactly the same, so now I had two lasers I could try.

The hardest part about opening this drive is taking the soldering off the shielding plate, which was a real pain in the ass. If you have the right tools (I ordered a Precision screwdriver set from amazon), the rest of it is extremely simple. The only screwdrivers I needed were T4, T6, T7 and Slotted 1.3.

On one of the laser ribbon cables, I tried to remove the solder bridges as the DIY said, and on the other I left it as it came. I removed the soldering enough to mimic how it looked on the original laser's ribbon cable. The first time I tried to fix it, I did it as the DIY instructed, I took the solder bridges off the ribbon cable, slid it on the rails, made sure the metal shield actuated that end switch and reassembled back together. When I placed it back into the car it acted extremely strange. At first I inserted the DVD and it went just in just fine, but the navi said it could not read the DVD. I hit the eject button, and it made the sound like it was ejecting but didn't eject. Then that ejecting sound continued cycling up until I turned the ignition on and off. Finally, I was able to eject the DVD. I put it back in and it said i should load the DVD in even though it was in the drive. After further tries it finally said please wait, and after a short while it said Error in reading the CD/DVD.

Next I replaced that laser with the other new laser, that had the contact points on the ribbon cable intact. This produced the same result. I'm not sure if this is when it happened, but this is when I realized that I could not hear the DVD spinning anymore. The same thing happened. Sometimes it would say, Please Wait--->cant read. Or sometimes it just says insert DVD, and it remains that way.

At this point, I'm guessing the motor itself burned out. I ever touched the motor, maybe I damaged the PCB while I was taking the soldering off, but I doubt it. Really I'm not to sure what it is. I've opened the drive up many times to make sure all the ribbon cables are snuggly in.

Either way, it seems like the DVD doesn't spin anymore. Now I'm looking into buying the drive itself, for 149 Euros from Elektronik-Idee

Has anyone dealt with them?

Flickr: mele4nyc's Photostream

Sorry to hear that
I can confirm that the most difficult act is taking the soldering off the shielding plate, Lucky me. I'm working in a electronic manufacturing company.... We have all needed tools.
Up to now I never had to change the complete dvd drive. Do you know anybody with an other MK4 unit. That would give you the chance to exchange the drives to localize the error.

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330Ci convertible
Z1 roadster

Unfortunately I don't know anyone that has the MKIV, let alone let me mess with it. I ordered a new drive, I should have it in one to two weeks. That should fix the problem.

I replaced the laser in my MK4 with a new SF-HD4 black cover. Everything went fine but now it only reads CD's and not DVD's. I used the CD reinstall the OS to v31. That went fine but it wont read the OEM 2004.1 or 2007.2 nav discs that I have.

This is a great thread. Just an FYI that the new generation of navigation system dvd drives (including E70 X5's, etc) are not immune to failure. Apparently it is "due to hardening of the anti-vibration gel on the read head." See attached SIB 650110.

Attached Images

SIB 65 01 10.pdf (86.1 KB, 1913 views)