20 Most Recent Toshiba SD-4000 Questions & Answers

The laser diodes which read the disc weaken over time and the lens can become dirty. Remove the case and you will see the 4mm dia. lens on the assembly rise up to read the disc when inserted. Eject the disc and lightly wipe the lens clean with a cellulose acetate Q tip or head cleaning cloth with just a small amount of disc/optic/lens cleaner. Try playing the DVD. If it will not read any discs then the laser diodes are to weak to read or there is a malfunction in the digital signal processing board. Unless it is under warranty, you will need another unit.

Hi rbd2053,
If you have necessary tools and test instruments, know safety precaution in basic troubleshooting try the steps below to solve your problem.
Assuming that the disc is good.
1.Clean the lens. - Sometimes because of dust the lens can't read any disc. Try clean the lens by soft cotton buds. Be careful while doing this.
2.Replace the ribbon - Check the ribbon connected to the lens from the main board for scratch, damage. Once it has an open line then of course the lens can't read the disc. Also try to erase the contact by pencil eraser. If you've done the steps above and the symptoms still there then the next step requires you a little knowledge in soldering technique and reading the ohmmeter.
3.Check the motor - Check the motor that spin the disc with an ohmmeter. You can test it using the ohmmeter (x1) even it is connected on the lens assembly.Good motor - reading should be fairly high and it will spin. Bad motor- reading will drop to low resistance and will not spin.
Hint : 50% of my repaired unit the above parts are commonly caused of the problem.
If you confirmed that you have a defective motor then replace it with a new one. Before replacing the new motor you have to check the clearance of the disc holder with the old one. The clearance should be the same as the old because if not the lens will not read the disc if it is too far or too close.
If the above steps didn't cure the problem, high chance that your optical lens was faulty.

If you can't do the job yourself, I would advice you to look for a professional to troubleshoot the symptom.

Hope I helped you.
Have a nice day!
Thanks for using Fixya.

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Regards,Jay__JNbh

It sounds like the processor in the TV or the DVD player processor is locked up, and if you unplug both units from the wall for 40 MIN, that should reset the processors back to normal.

Try new cables. Make sure the video cable plug is fully seated in both the DVD player and TV's jack. If you are using S-video, check for any damaged pins on the cable ends.

I hope this helps.

Cindy Wells

Hi,

There are three things you can do that will eventually give you a working solution. Depending on the level of problem. Start with 1 progress to 3 until it works.
1. Use a cleaning disc. (one that use an alcohol based liquid)

2. If the cleaning disc does not solve it, you can use an ear bud, with some iso-propyl alcohol to clean the DVD lens on the drive directly. (you have to open the player and the drive)

3. The guaranteed working solution is to replace the DVD drive inside the player. This is quite a simple process, as most players use a standard IDE DVD-ROM or DVD writer.

You simply remove the face plate, (apply power to the drive, and press eject first) the tray will open. Unclip the tray face, and then with the tray open you can unclip the plastic face plate too.

Remove the old drive, and fit the new drive by reversing the removal procedure.

Once everything is assembled you should be able to watch DVD's again. If you can't find a cheap DVD drive locally, try ebay.

I have done this on over 50 players for my clients in the past. I use LG IDE DVD roms and IDE DVD writers for the DVD recorders, irrespective of brand.

Let me know how it goes.

Exchanged AmEx Rewards points for 3 Toshiba Model DS-4000KU DVD players in 2007. All stopped working. Two a year ago, one this week. Errors - can't read disc, bad disc, etc.

Warranty period is up. So I decided to open one up tonight since they were going in the garbage anyway.

Put on rubber gloves and took off the case. Unscrewed the player unit, lifted it carefully, and untaped lines from the botton of the unit.

Plugged the unit in and powered it on. Did not blow up! :>)

Jiggled some of the lines and connections. Put a disc in and it read it!

Attached it to the tv without putting the case back on. Received video. Yay! But no sound. Boo!

Jiggled the lines some more and tried it again. Working fine now.

Will put the case back on later and see if it still works.

Good luck!

Just wondering whether damp has affected the circuit boards.
Try putting it in a warm room plug it in and leave for 2 hours then try again.

Hey this is a great site!
I was having a similar problem with my Toshiba SD-K860. Bobbyj, thanks for the link to the SD-4900 service manual, it was extremely helpful even though it was a different model. I could not find an emergency eject pinhole, and leaving the unit unplugged for a while did not help (two suggestions found on other sites), so I simply took the whole thing apart, got the disc out, found the eject slider on the bottom of the tray, massaged the tray open and closed, and put everything back together again. The connections were solid and the belt was in tact so everything seemed to be fine. Once I reassembled and powered it back up it worked again!
I posted a more detailed solution on my problems to solve site, which is similar to this one:
http://problemstosolve.com/solved/toshiba-sd-k850-wont-eject-solved/

i have a targa 5500x from lidl cant copy from hard drive to dvd as i have done this many times but the dvd drawer keeps opening telling me to put in blank dvd and i keep doing this but getting no where,
mary