Philips DVDR 3390/37

Hi. Look underneath (bottom) of unit, right under the DVD drive. There is a open narrow slot. Take a PLASTIC, or non-metal, instument, like a chop-stick, etc., & insert into slot. Start from the very right of open slot & move the instrument to the left. You will be moving a plastic slider that will open the dvd drive, Simple. Also, keep a dummy disc in drive & it will open all the time, but the drive will constantly spin & spin, overheat & no longer work. It only shuts down when no disc is inserted. I have rebuilt dozens of these models. What I do is after viewing disc, I remove right away, because when you switch to view from hdd or cable/sat., the inserted disc will spin all the time & wear out drive very soon. By keeping a disc out, the drive will last a long time. It is so easy just to manually!! open the dvd drive, each time. Better than replacing with a PC internal IDE dvd burner. Then you have to cut hole on top for IDE cable & power cable & the dvd burner/drive sits on top of unit because it will NOT fit inside. Plus, if you do this, remember to put plastic button on master slot seen on the back of new dvd burner. Also, another tip, if you save a show, ect, on HDD, burn onto disc right away, if you want to save program onto a disc. Another tip, you can hold onto stop button on remote, a few seconds, & dvd drive door will open. Hold again & it will shut.

Press the open/close button for 10sec until it shows unblock/unlock. Someone has press that button to lock or block. Thats a protection to open it accidentally. Good luck Hope this may help you

Smash the above the tray as soon as you hit the open close button, seems to work for me.

So far the above seems correct. Keep it full. What is wrong I can only guess. Mine quit writing but reads. I disassembled and pressed firmly on the disc spin mechanism from the top while disassembled. I bought another and switch parts.
www.asatech.cc has them at 13.html in the parts page.
I'm trying to get replacements as we read.
[email protected]

I had the same problem. It is likely to get worse. The problem is one of design of the R/W unit. What is "causing" the "blockage" is the stabilization idler mounted on a plastic piece spanning the top of the recorder. It is a plastic disc with a metal ring embedded in it. It clamps down on the dvd once its loaded. It is supposed to release when the eject sequence starts. The read/write head assembly is supposed to rise up to read a dvd or cd and drop back down to a rest position when its time to eject the disc. The head assembly is encased in a metal shell, which is already magnetized or has become magnetized, because mine is. The mechanism pulling the head down is too weak to pull the head all the way down. It moves just a little bit, you hear some noise and the "blocked" message appears on the display. If you take the cover off, you see the dvd still in the "mounted" position, but it has moved a little bit, but the clamp effect of the stabilizer is still engaged.
There are 2 ways I know to get around it, neither is kosher. First, before you go inside, tap the area of the philips case right where you imagine the dvd center to be, if one was loaded. Tap AND hit open, you may break the magnetic link that way, the head drops, the tray slides out. Then always keep a dvd in the player to give the release motor a little help, use a scratch disc you were going to throw away anyway.
Second, you need to open the case, pry the stabilizer up as high as you can, or tap on the plastic near its edge while pressing the "open" button. You may need a pc type screw driver to remove the very small screws that the stabilizer assembly is mounted on. This way you can at least get the disc without further damage to it..You might as well leave the screws off, if you plan to keep using the recorder. I did until I now, 6 months later, have the unknown disc problem. What a shame, it is a good unit, read and wrote to old dvd-rw discs my other recorders refused to touch . Having no real luck finding the drive unit as a sale item, it is really easy to replace, just like a pc drive..that would be under 40 dollars. I would buy another philips, but unless I can find a couple replacement drives to put in the closet it doesn't make sense. I dislike throwing out all those electronics because of a little problem with the R/W unit. Just the words of an old, country network/pc technician.