Well, if you try PatchBurn and it doesn’t work for you either and you’re not squeamish about disassembly…
there’s only four little screws holding the top on that drive and you don’t have to completely remove the
top to access the plastic laser “eye” lens. Just remove the screws and let the top “hinge” up in the
direction that the white paper triangle points.
A very clean “fresh” cotton Q-tip with just a fraction of a drop of glass cleaner to lightly remove dust,
smoke residue, etc. might remedy the situation. Sounds as if you might be replacing the drive anyway,
so a little effort beforehand might not be all that painful. With lasers (says a former Hell laser scanner
operator
) clean optics are essential. Dust, smoke, cat hair, etcetera can ruin your whole freakin’ day.
Pictured below is a similar model UJ-846-C drive and its’ horrible little eye.
Or, you could try one of those CD lens cleaner discs (those make me nervous).
Did it ever burn DVDs dependably in the past?
Has it ever been in a smoky environment?
Did it play the TINTIN DVD?