Do IT Yourself

I got the dreaded “power calibration” error while trying to burn a backup disk on this three-year-old IBM T43. As this was the first time I had encountered it (and half past midnight really isn’t a very good time to encounter problems for the first time) I had to go ask my good buddy Google for help.

It appears that there are three main causes of the power calibration error.

1. The drive doesn’t like the media. With the proliferation of cheap blank media there will be instances when the blank cd itself is the problem. I thought this was my problem at first, having bought a stack of 100 cd’s from a local dealer that prides itself on very affordable prices, but consequently offers little if any warranty.
2. Power consumption. In this era of usb hubs that look make your peripherals look like sucklings on a sow there may be a chance that your cd recorder is not getting the power that it needs to burn your cd’s. So off went the usb hub and I suffered the eraser-head pointer tool on the T43 keyboard. Still no go.
3. Dirt. Yuk. Yep, this was actually the culprit in my case. I live in a country where dust and grime is part of everyday life and I remember again that this laptop was assigned to a heavy smoker before it ended up on my lap. I took out my bottle of micro clean and spritzed a q-tip, swabbed the lens (very gently) and then gave it a few bursts of the rubber dust blower. THAT fixed it.

Am burning happily again now, and I’ve passed the tip on to my buddies at work. Hope it helps you too.