“Unrecognized Disc” even after laser replacement

Hello everyone! Just joined the TronicsFix community and this is my first post woohoo! Steve, I watch your YouTube channel and find it very informative and entertaining, thank you! So I need opinions on an issue I ran into. My neighbors PS4 CUH-1115A had an issue where you get unrecognized disc error for game discs used on the PS4. So I offered to help repair it as I am familiar with DIY electronics repair and have the tools for it (except Micro soldering). Opened up the optical disc drive and inspected all components like the gears and there were no visible signs of damage or anything out of place. I’ve also cleaned the laser lens with no luck. So I ordered new drive deck with laser compatible with the PS4 from a reputable eBay seller. I Carefully installed it however still get the error message “unrecognized disc” I reopened the disc drive and double checked my work, made sure all ribbon cables were not torn or incorrectly connected, no parts were broken. The optical disc drive still has the original daughter board and no signs of burnt or damaged circuits. I’m baffled. I did many electronic repairs before for I’m not a beginner in the DIY. Could it be my luck that replacement part is defective? I’ve reached out to the seller but yet to hear back. Has anyone had the same issue or know what could be the culprit? Thanks!

Yes, it can be a faulty part. Most if not all of the drive decks have used lasers in them. I would buy a replacement laser that’s brand new and try that out. Hope that helps and be sure to post back here if you find the fix so others who see this and have the same problem can get help too.

OK this is weird I still haven’t heard back from the eBay seller however I tried other troubleshooting steps like doing a software update through the safe mode, unfortunately still no luck and then I remembered seeing a YouTube video where this guy claims that when positioning his PS4 vertically the “unrecognized disc” issue is gone. I didn’t think much at the time but it was worth a shot. Well doing that actually worked but only when positioned with the disc drive up (Sony logo) not the other way round. So what are your guess? I’m sure my neighbor would want the PS4 to be positioned horizontally as to avoid it getting knocked down with kids a pets around.

this could be a bad ribbon cable connection… from the motheboard to the drive… so makes sense to me if you rotate your console, this ribbon cable moves in some way…