Sony RDR-HX900 DVD recorder and player (HX900) uses DVD/CD ReWritable
Drive Unit Model DW-U15A (burner) which may be the only 'burner' that
will work in the HX900 since the burner is matched to the main board.
Sony does not publish much information on this expensive gear, which
they treat as proprietary. Sony does not sell the HX900 anymore, and
it seems that Sony no longer has this burner available for purchase as
a part or available to Sony Service. The burner on my unit is acting
flakey, it will often fail to record a new disc, or to reload and play
a disc that was just recorded, showing error code C1300 which seems to
be a catch-all error code which appears for a variety of problems, and
although the description of the code is "The Disc Is Dirty", there is
no dirt on the disc. The disc is loaded properly, and the burner has
itself been opened and cleaned. Best guess is that the Laser Diode
output is weak, which cause the write or read errors (sometimes a disc
that won't read the first time loaded, will eventually be readable on
subsequent loading attempts -- this suggests the burner does still
write and read, but the output strength is on the border line and
sometime succeeds in reading, and other times not. I have no
documentation to help, I think increasing power on diode would be
risky, especially since I do not have the documentation to know how.
After reading Sam's notes on troubleshooting, I think the best repair
approach is to replace the entire optical deck (burner sled). Can
anyone help suggest a source for the part (optical deck for this
burner) or the entire unit? Any helpful suggestions for approaching
the repair or alternate approach? If I can not repair or replace the
integrated burner, I loose the HX900 which is what makes the repair
worth pursuing even if it is difficult, time consuming, and/or
costly. Sony never repaired the burner in their Service group (only
replaced), and no longer has replacement burners available.