[bbobbman]

I see there has been a lot of talk about this model having problems
after a varying degree of time. I believe I have found the answer with
regard to the HO2 / HO5 error messages occurring.

This problem is the one in which it seems the motor will not turn the
disk at initial startup and when a disk is loaded. It appears to be a
motor problem but it isn't and is I think due to a misalignment of the
large front white plastic cog.

I had my unit only about a year before this problem started to occur.
I was determined not just to throw the unit out prematurely and
decided to investigate cautiously. I removed the DVD drive section
from the unit and had a good look at the way the mechanism worked. The
fix I found was simply to realign the main white cog with the rest of
the cogs in the unit, back into the correct position.

1/ Remove the top plastic assembly (easier than it looks) that holds
the drive tray in place (slightly move the lock tab plastics on either
side to release).

2/ Remove the drive tray to expose the whole laser assembly and motor
platform.

3/ Remove the White cog (to be adjusted) at the front of the drive
assembly (use a small screwdriver gently to release the center locking
tabs on either side of the shaft.

4/ Move the tray assembly bask and forward by rotating one of the
smaller cogs until you get an idea of how the whole assembly works -
use common sense. Clean the motor unit and surrounding assembly items
with a suitable mechanism cleaning spray.

5/ Rotate the smaller cog With the assembly moved towards the correct
disk loaded position. Replace the removed large white cog and line up the flat locking block on the disk tray (underneath) with the blank (missing) cog position (holes line up in cog and base assembly), reassemble the top plastic
tray holder and upper rotational center guide plastic bearing.

6/ Reassemble the DVD Drive assembly with the electronics, power up
and hey presto, the unit is now functional. I believe that this
problem occurred because of perhaps manually pushing in the front DVD
drive tray rather than electrically loading a DVD. The main drive tray
cog appears to have gotten misaligned and then causes the unit to
click (make noises) and have difficulty spinning the disk up to speed,
causing the H02 and HO5 error messages.

7/ This worked for me and I now have a fully functional and reliable
unit.

Patrick McHale