Such micro DC brushed motors could be salvaged from other CD-ROM drives (used in tray mechanisms) or portable CD players "Walkmans", PSX laser assemblies also used such motors for spindles, though always consult datasheets to get a closest match.

Are you sure it's the spindle motor that failed? That drive model is notorious for a small plastic gear that cracks and prevents the laser assembly from moving, and as a result the drive doesn't even attempt to spin up the disc.

If it is indeed the spindle motor that died, you can also try looking for 3DO replacement parts, if I'm not mistaken it's the exact same drive.

TheMobRules wrote on 2025-04-19, 06:45:

Are you sure it's the spindle motor that failed? That drive model is notorious for a small plastic gear that cracks and prevents the laser assembly from moving, and as a result the drive doesn't even attempt to spin up the disc.

If it is indeed the spindle motor that died, you can also try looking for 3DO replacement parts, if I'm not mistaken it's the exact same drive.

I tested the drive by hooking it up to the power supply with the housing off of it. The laser assembly appears to be working fine as far as I can tell? It lifts into position to read the disk when the drive is in the closed position and the worm gear that drives the head seeking appears to be fine since it attempts to seek after it is in position. The motor just won't spin up, so I'm hoping its just a matter of replacing it. I did notice there is a little vent hole on the motor and I haven't tried shooting some deoxit into there yet, but I feel as if it would at least show visible signs of attempting to move if there was any chance of freeing it up, it makes a vague sound I can't quite place when the head is in position but no dice at any sort of visible motor output.

Well, it's a DC motor, so just give it something like 3.3V or 5V and see if it spins up. You can even try that in the CD drive with the motor wires disconnected from the main board and connected to your power source. Have a CD on the spindle and spin it up, then power up the drive to see if the laser assembly moves around and tries to seek. Try some different types of CDs too - i.e. audio, data, and etc.

I also second the notion that you can find such DC motors in other optical drives, particularly from the tray eject mechanism.

That said, I suspect you may find the problem not to be with the motor... at least if the motor does appear to work when you power it from an external source.
I have a more modern LG drive here that also won't try to spin discs at all. But if I spin the disc by hand very fast, eventually the motor "blurps" and tries to spin, then stops and the drive still doesn't want to read. Haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, but I suspect the laser pickup is likely EOL. Luckily, I have found an identical drive with the PCB missing (long story... but yeah, I know a local scrapper that prefers to pull the PCBs out of optical drives than sell them for reasons unknown.) Just need to find the time to get to it and swap parts around.