why won't my DVD trays eject when I press the button on front of them, both drives are the same and require many many presses before they decide to pop out, neither will work by clicking on the eject button on media player or on any other software, both have been like this from day one, running XP with AOpen drives.
I suspect it is a windows issue rather than mechanical.

Can you eject via My Computer?

good call, seems to be working both trays at the moment, will try this in future.

thanks
steve

eventually after I keep pressing them over and over

What about the lights on the front and noise from the drives, do the lights flicker/flash forever until it opens?

yep lights flicker and it appears to be wanting to open, sometimes no drive noise sometimes though it does make an eject attempt but just won't open, as though stuck, but both are completely free and the drive surrounds aren't tight neither, only way to test them I guess is stick them in another pc.

Could try that, does it do this with and without media in the drives.

yep it does

Try this fix
Autoplay Fix

Steve...

Windows has to function with many, many different brands so sometimes it gets a little confused with all it's functions.

The buttons on the front of the CD/DVD trays will open after 5-6 seconds or so... what they do is make sure there is no disc in there and then prepare to eject... this takes a little bit of time. I think it's a case of impatience rather than it not working lol.

Just be calmer with it

Just stick a paper clip in the little hole, sorted (not while it's reading the disc obviously lol)

thanks all will try everything suggested.