Storage Solutions Fix for "Power Calibration Error" with Optical drive

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I turned off the computer, unplugged the IDE cable and tried booting it with just power. That fixed the drive once before when I had this problem. Didn't work this time. I continued with trying different jumper positions and even tried setting it for the diagnostics mode listed in the plextor manual. No change with that either.

Next I unplugged everything from the drive and opened it up. Then gave it just power and booted the open drive. I noticed it spinned the motor once and the laser would flash once too if a disc was inserted. The amber light would flash twice if a disc was inserted. When there was no disc the amber light would flash just once and the laser would try to read less. So clearly the drive was detecting a disc but for some reasons was not being instructed to read and was acting like a disc was not found.

So I next turned off the drive and unplugged just the ribbon cable connected to the drive's laser. All the other ribbon cables I left in tact. Then booted the drive and noticed that the motor would spin 3 times and move the laser 3 times trying to find a disc. So now I know for sure that the laser was actually sending info but not getting instructions to read the disc if it found one. I turned off the drive, plugged back the ribbon cable and powered up the drive again. The laser flashed so bright this time I had to move my face . A large bright red light, way brighter than before, and the drive again tried to spin. I started thinking that the drive might actually work now . I turned off the drive put a disc on the tray, put back the drive cover and powered it up again. The drive turned on the amber light, and it stayed on . Then I started to hear the soothing noise of the drive spinning up faster and faster. After a minute or so the amber light turned green and stayed on and the drive continued spinning at top speed .

I jumped up for joy hoping that the drive was fully functional now and I proceeded to plug it into my computer. I turned off the drive, reconnected everything to my computer and booted up . When I got into windows it detected the disc and everything is now working perfect again .

So to summarize, if the drive's laser isn't working properly open it up unplug the laser's data cable. Power it up without the laser's data cable then turn it off reconnect the data cable and power it up again. It might induce a calibration/laser reset.
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Source: Club CD Freaks - Knowledge is Power - View Single Post - "Power Calibration Error" with Plextor
 
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low_bass_makker said:
i dont think it is a accurate solution.......
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Optical drives are about the only hardware that ever give me trouble - recently lost my BENQ 1640 to a problem with the lens :( - if you have a better answer to this problem PLEASE share it with us. THANKS !!
 
thanks, i shall try this on my nec 3500ag, used to get this error a lot on that, have practically tried everything but still the same problem, although my prob is a little diff as it reads almost all the discs, & also writes 60% of the time, but sometimes when i write i randomly get the error power calib error. its very frustrating.

will give it a shot & post if it worked or no.
 
i know for sute that this isnt the solution to the problem... but i cant say for sure that x or y is the solution... im testin a few drives now.. will update after my experiments.
 
I used to get power calibration errors on by samsung CD writer. I then used Nero DriveSpeed to control the speed at which the drive writes CDs. I reduced the maximum speed that displays and wrote some CDs at 4X. The burns were successful.

You can try this method and maybe go on increasing the burn speeds from 4X upwards.
 
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