The disc spins up once the laser detects reflection from an inserted disc. So pretty much the laser isn't working or the lense got stuck during transport.

Could be that a cable or wire plug came loose in shipping. I would try opening it up and reseat all cable and wire plugs.

Could also be that it got jolted around too much in shipping and a solder connection cracked or messed something else up.

Got it open, cleaned the lens, nothing wrong. Behavior now a little different - it spins up the disc, moves the head back and forth, as if scanning through the disc surface at different rotation speeds, then gives up and reports reading failure. Visually no damage, all cables appear to be fine.

Did you unplug and replug all cables? Just because the look fine doesn't mean that they have a good connection.

My guess is that the drive was flakey from the get go and shipping it just did it in.

Will do this shortly.

I'd also try to clean not only the lens but also the area under it with compressed air.

Using compressed air near the laser assembly is probably the worst thing you can do. It will rip off the lense, or at least apply so much force to it that it will never work again. The lense is so fragile that even cleaning with a little too much force can damage it.

Well, sure one has to be careful and adjust the distance of applying the compressed air. The thing is that depending on the construction there can be aslo a lot of dust under the lens.

You should see the laser turning on when you insert a disc and the drive is scanning it. On most drives this is true even when closing the tray without a disk. Usual warnings apply, do not stare into the beam, look at the lens at an angle. Seeing that your drive now behaves differently after cleaning the lens, I assume the laser isn't dead though.

Once I was able to repair an old drive by "deep cleaning" the optical pickup. Since cleaning the top of the lens didn't produce much positive result, I took off the lens/actuator coils assembly and cleaned also the back of the lens and the mirror/beam splitter(?) that can be found below the lens. Drive reads quite ok after that, but there's a quirk: on most new(er) drives I think it's impossible to remove the lens/coils assembly without losing some form of alignment (the screw(s) holding the assembly are locked in a certain position in the factory; on the drive that I repaired the screw was fully tightened down, no alignment role). Still, since your drive isn't working anyway I guess there's nothing to lose. A way of keeping the alignment would be to keep track of the number of turns when you take off those screws.

I've yet to see a drive that doesn't have enough smarts to settle into a kind of "ready" mode with nothing connected but power. So, if you remove the top cover, plug a Molex connector in, drop in a disc, and it reads the TOC and spins up to ready-idle speed ... then the drive is probably OK! If it does not behave normally, then there's almost definitely something wrong with it. I would look into working out a solution with the seller before tearing down the laser, because there's more than a little chance that will be its fate, and then it's your fault it doesn't work. Truly a last ditch effort, IMO, when you have nothing to lose.

Guys, alas, no laser beam. Nothing helps. I think it's dead. I've salvaged the front face plastic which was in good shape. Maybe I can find the rest of it somewhere and put it together again. Thanks for the words of wisdom anyways.

P.S. I have been able to restore my other Optorite CD-RW drive back to life by cleaning the lens with isopropyl alcohol. It was struggling to read CDRs, and even with common CDs was not working very well. 1-2 wipes with a cotton bud and it now works perfectly. In that case lens cleaning worked perfectly. Probably the lens wasn't plastic.

Some lasers you cannot see because the color is outside of our visual spectrum. Open the cdrom and Follow SirNickity advice and just attach power. Power it up and open the tray. Check the top CD holder, it has to be very loose when tray is out and before a disk is inserted. Put a disk in and watch the spin-up, it should rev up high briefly then settle at a mid speed. To clean the lens only use Windex, a little on a Q-tip and gentle roll it on the lens using no pressure. Never use alcohol as it can fog the plastic lens.
I just fixed a 1998 Lite-on 32x LTN-301 cdrom that would not spin up proper. The top cd holder was gummy and not loose when no disk was in and tray was out. Took it off and cleaned it good, it has a blade spring to apply slight down pressure so slightly bent it away from the holder about 1/16" more than it was to loosen it a bit more. Now it spins up just fine and reads disks properly. Would have taken pictures to show you but it is all back assembled already 😀
edit: fixed some grammar 😁

For the lasers you cannot see, use the camera on your phone.

Dammit I haven't thought about the laser being IR. I have recycled the remaining stuff already. 🙁 Whoops.

FWIW, I've never looked at a CD drive and not been able to see the laser. For DVDs it's BRIGHT red, but the IR lasers tend to be at least a tiny bit in the visual spectrum as well. Just be careful gaping at it, because there is (hopefully) a lot of light you don't see, too.

Hi, having similar issues with an LG Lightscribe drive. The drive is recognized in XP but doesn't spin up / show a disc when inserted. Troubleshooting I have done so far...

Flashed with the latest firmware from LG
Opened case, cleaned laser, and confirmed it is working (red beam)
Checked that all parts seem to be clean and are not frozen or stuck
Reseated all cables
When I put in a disc with the case off, I see the following:
The disc spins maybe a 16th of a turn
The laser moves into position and checks for disc
Disc then spins maybe a 16th of a turn again and then everything stops (no spin-up)

The motor for spinning the disc appears clean and rotates just fine. I don't think these motors go out easily but are not sure if it isn't working properly.

Another small light (maybe a laser) is in a fixed position right next to the spindle. I was thinking this has something to do with Lightscribe and maybe checks that the Lightscribe side of the disc is facing down. Not sure if there could be a fault there in that it thinks there is a Lightscribe disc so it is not spinning up and waiting to burn an image?

Any troubleshooting tips would be appreciated.