BuMP.
As a follow-up and to close the thread, I got it working.
I spent the day helping a friend get a caddy loading Plextor CD-RW drive that someone had installed in a NeXT Cube. It had the same issue. Turns out that a simple blow-out of the drive didn't help because the dust that had been sucked in through the open front of the drive had stuck to everything, even the lens. You had to dismantle and clean the lens with a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol to get it to work again.
I tried the same on my CD SC and it worked there too! Apparently this type of drive needs to sense a reflective surface before it will try to spin. The dust was blocking the path so it always thought no disc was in the caddy and just ejected it.
As a follow-up and to close the thread, I got it working.
I spent the day helping a friend get a caddy loading Plextor CD-RW drive that someone had installed in a NeXT Cube. It had the same issue. Turns out that a simple blow-out of the drive didn't help because the dust that had been sucked in through the open front of the drive had stuck to everything, even the lens. You had to dismantle and clean the lens with a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol to get it to work again.
I tried the same on my CD SC and it worked there too! Apparently this type of drive needs to sense a reflective surface before it will try to spin. The dust was blocking the path so it always thought no disc was in the caddy and just ejected it.