Help Mii - My Wii is broken

January 19, 2009 11:53 PM

My Wii will not read disks. Help.

My Wii has stopped reading any and all game disks. The unit itself boots up, but will not read or load the game disk. Instead, a "disk error: cannot read disk. Please remove disk and restart" message displays. This happens for all disks - it's not that the disk is dirty.

It's a Japanese Wii, so I can't provide the exact English error message.

Any thoughts on what it could be?

Some Googling has indicated that the laser may need to be replaced. I'm not sure how to do this, and don't want to crack it open. I'm not even sure (I'm in Canada) where to order a laser from.

The Wii was bought in Japan in November 2007, and the warranty has expired.

Any thoughts?

Leading up to this crisis, the colour sometimes seemed off - it was dark or muddy. But it always recovered.

posted by KokuRyu to Technology (10 answers total)

Are the games you're trying to get it to read from Japan, too? If not, there might be a region difference at play here. Just a thought.
posted by misozaki at 12:03 AM on January 20, 2009

i'm not trying to be insulting or anything (this actually happened to .... someone I know... ok, it was me), but the one time I moved the Wii from one side of the living room to the other after rearranging the furniture I accidentally turned it over (so it was upside down relative to how it was before) and didn't realise why I was getting your same message until it was pointed out that I was inserting the game disk upside down. So, maybe......
posted by alchemist at 12:07 AM on January 20, 2009

DVD lens cleaner?
posted by 0bvious at 3:09 AM on January 20, 2009

Give Nintendo a call even though the warranty is expired. You might get lucky, IMHO they tend to take great care of their customers.
posted by InsanePenguin at 3:14 AM on January 20, 2009

My out of warranty wii just crapped out at the begining of December.

I called Nintendo CS, they said it would cost me about 84 bucks with shipping to get it repaired, this included a pre-paid FedEx shipping label to them, and return service.

I did it, got it back about 2 weeks ago, and I am totally happy. The new drive is warranted for a year from when they replaced it, so if it craps out again this year I get it repaired for free..
posted by JonnyRotten at 5:26 AM on January 20, 2009

Like alchemist above, not trying to be condescending, but sometimes we all miss the obvious stuff, so I'll share:

Our Wii has frozen up at least twice & refused to read discs. Turnign the Wii on & off at the power buttin is useless, but unplugging it from the power supply reboots it properly and gets it back on track. It's done this 2 or 3 times in it's 9 month span of living with us. The disks appear to be fine. I think it just shits itself every so often and needs a hard reboot.

The colour issue I am clueless about aside from another "dumb stuff i have done in the past" memory that prompts me to ask you if you've checked that all cables all plugged in correctly?
posted by goshling at 6:06 AM on January 20, 2009

Are you a smoker? Nintendo has acknowledged that the laser is sensitive to cigarette smoke. If so, and nothing else has worked, try getting a lens cleaner. Can't image it would be too tough to find/order one in Canada.

I'm assuming you haven't been f'ing around with any homebrew and the like and bricked your system. If you have, you can MeMail me.
posted by SpiffyRob at 7:03 AM on January 20, 2009

Response by poster: Hi there, thanks for the help, I appreciate... Still no luck. Here's an update:

- This is not a modded Wii
- We use Japan-region games with our Japan-region Wii, so no problems there
- We are inserting the DVD correctly
- Disconnected the power cables from the Wii box overnight, but that did not fix the problem
- We don't smoke

I did notice the fan screen was pretty dusty, so I'll give DVD lens cleaner a try. This sounds like a stupid question, but can I buy one in Canada, or does it have to be Japanese (regional encoding)?
posted by KokuRyu at 7:33 AM on January 20, 2009

Here's the thing: you've had video output problems. In my unfortunate experience, a console that starts putting out bad video isn't long for this world. Granted, none of these consoles were a Wii, but I would still contact customer service and request the repair. Make sure they understand there are two separate issues: doesn't read discs and has intermittent video problems.

On a sympathetic note, our Wii intermittently refuses to read the Animal Crossing disc. Other discs read the first time, every time, so it's probably a problem with the disc instead of the machine. I've had a few other discs(for various systems) that, by all appearances, were perfectly find, but wouldn't read or would crash during gameplay.
posted by owtytrof at 10:23 AM on January 20, 2009

Response by poster: We sent the Wii to a modder who fixed it. Apparently, the drive was kaput, so it was replaced and now it is as good as new. It's also region-free, so we can play N America and Japanese games. Which is pretty neat.

Thank you modder!
posted by KokuRyu at 12:07 AM on March 25, 2009