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Recently bought a cheap PS4 slim that was a dud, when the power button was pressed the console would also press the eject button, the fan was broken etc! i fixed all issues and got the console on, it plays and reads disks fine but there is a slight grind/ whirring sound! The disk isn’t scratching top or bottom so I’m assuming it’s the side, I pulled apart the disk drive and the top silver tray was bent a little (literally a tiny amount) when I got it back into shape perfectly it still grinds! steps I’ve tried checked all gears and springs cleaned the whole drive with IPA taken apart and re assembled a dozen times! im wondering if there’s a good guide out there for diagnosing these issues for a PS4 slim, I see a few where they show the silver top being taken off but they never show in detail how it is supposed to sit ie; the little white disk that I assume sits the disk onto the spinning wheel! Sorry for the long post I’m just really confused at the minute as it all seems to sit perfectly but the sound is loud haha
If the drive is grinding, it usually means the hard drive is close to failing. Backup your system to an external drive RIGHT NOW and stop using it until the drive is replaced! That being said, if it’s under warranty (which I highly doubt), you may want to send it to Sony or see if they will mail you a new hard drive. Because there is no specific guide on how to access the drive, refer to the teardown, but use some caution as a key step may not be found in the teardown. Update Based on the new information provided, I’m not surprised by the failure mode. The Blu-Ray drives have been made unnecessarily complex since the Fat PS3 was released, so a dead one doesn’t surprise me at all at this point, even on the Slim. Follow this guide to open the system and replace the drive or drive cover. In this case, you probably just need the laser cover as the laser assembly still works. However, if you replace the entire drive, you MUST move the drive PCB to the new one or it will not work as the drive is paired. If you use the new PCB, it will not read discs.
