When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Sorry to bring an old thread back up. Great post. I took the unit out, cleaned it (it wasn't dirty in my 2005 mdx) and I am still getting the "please check disc" error. Before I contact Alpine to see if they will fix it, I wanted to also point out that my backup camera is NOT working (it stopped at the same time I started getting the disc error). Would the DVD rom prevent this or is there an issue in the nav unit itself? I don't want to send the rom off to alpine if there is another issue.
Thoughts?
Yes. In fact, anything that functions with the unit is affected. So it can possibly affect your back up camera. More than likely if the cleaning didn’t help , then it’s a mechanical issue within the disc reader. I would call alpine and get it fixed since it’s not allowing you to see your backup camera(which is pretty annoying). Good luck on your fix. Hope I was able to help.
I have read the first 5 pages of this thread-so forgive me if my question has been answered.
My 04 TL has recently been throwing up the error Disk Read Failure. This was a sudden occurrence-no errors until this appeared. Car has been restarted multiple times, so I fear that the issue is more electrical or mechanical, so I am thinking probably not a laser cleaning issue. I did try some canned air-just for giggles-no help.
From what I have read, the implication is that once the battery is disconnected, for any service reason\replacement, I will then lose my firmware, which will then make my touchscreen \radio\sound control inaccessible.
Can someone here confirm this?
If so, I see the only solution is to buy a replacement unit or use one of those "keep radio settings" battery gadgets when needing to disconnect main battery.
Before I begin, let me just say im not responsible for any damage you cause to your car. Make sure you are confident with the procedure before just diving in. There is a little but of supplimentary info that I wrote on this thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...8#post14154808
Im sure alot of people are aware of the issues that the Navi dvd Drive eventually develops. for anyone who hasn't happen yet, it is just a variation of a disk read error when starting up the navigation. In my case, the problem developed. I started out with disk read errors every now and then, to consistently every time I went in my car. Sometimes the navi would manage to boot, but as of recent, it just refused to. I had disconnected the battery the other day, and when I reconnected it, the navi tryed to download the software off the disk. As you can imagine, it didnt work, so I was stuck with a black screen that said "Please Check Disk" on it at all times. My screen was 100% useless.
So I decided to dig around. Alot of people just ended up sending their units to Alpine which they repaired for 158$. As of this year, their prices jumped up to 358$ which is pretty ridiculous. I honestly did not feel like paying that and I figured it would be worth trying a small repair since I am comfortable repairing small electronics
So lets get to the good stuff.
Tools
Screwdriver
Micro-Screwdrivers
Isopropyl Alchohol
Q-tips
Paper Towel
1. Remove the DVD from the drive (I forgot this the first time around. Felt really stupid at my desk ready to work and then having to start all over).
2. Disconnect the battery (Make sure your trunk is open)
3. Remove the Navi DVD drive. there is about 5 knob type screws and a push fastner stopping you from peeling back the fabric. I also had to remove the hard plastic panel at the rear of the trunk. Just pull up on that and it should come loose. Make sure you know where each knob came from. Several of them are different. Once you peel back the fabric, there are 4 screws that hold down the dvd drive bracket. you'll see them in pictures below. There are 5 clips attached in the back
4. So now you should have the navi drive sitting on your desk, with the bracket attached. there are 2 screws on each side of the bracket. Remove those and the navi will be free.
5. I took a few pictures of each side so you can familiarize yourself with the unit before you tackle this. One thing I noticed was the it was filthy. I took some isoproply alcohol and wiped down the entire unit to clean the dust. the paper towl was filthy after. Also, check out the production date. December 2003! 9 years till fill the lens with dust is actually pretty decent IMO.
6. Next step is to remove the screws holding the top lid. there are six screws, all of the rear of the unit, that need to be removed. 1 black screw, at the top left of the rear, and another 5 golden screws that are located along the top of the backside. its pretty obvious which ones are holding the top lid down. you only need to remove those 6. Nothing more.
7. Now lift the top metal piece upwards from the rear of the unit. you shouldnt need a ton of force. Maybe a bit to break it loose. the thing hasnt moved in 9 years. Once the lid begins to move, start paying attention the the 4 clips holding it on (picture below). this is all thats holding the unit on. It takes a little of moving around to get it free but its possible without removing the faceplate. the 2 center ones are a bit trickier. I used small screw driver to convince it a bit. I saw no signs of cracking or stress in the plastic, but still take caution to not break the plastics clips. After that, simply remove the top.
8. Now is the tricky part. Cleaning the laser. Originally, my plan was to remove the little screw holding in the center spring clamp. it gives you direct access to clean the lens. Unfortunately, none of my screw drivers were the right size, and its difficult to unscrew since that part is sprung (it moves up and down, making it possible to use any force to unscrew it). Anyways, I took a picture of the lens in the first picture below. its that little tiny shiny sparkle coming from right above the center screw from the clamp. At this point, its up to you how you want to clean your lens. Heres what I did. A regular q-tip was far to big to fit in the hole. I stripped alot (most) of the cotton off, and made sure there was no strands hanging out by rolling the tip in between my fingers (kind of how you used to roll your buggers before you flicked them as a kid). then I dipped the qtip in the isoproply alcohol. It still was a pretty tight fit to get it in, but it manages. you then have to angle it towards the lens since the hole is not directly above it. look at my second picture down to see my angle. I shined a light to get the best view I could of the lens. It is really (very) difficult to see from any angle, but you can occassionally see a glimpse. the lens moves up and down so dont worry about damaging by hitting it to hard, but make sure to be gentle with. After my first wipe, I looked at the lens, and actually noticed some crud on it towards the back. about 75% of it was sparkling clean. Went back and made sure to clean it all.
9. You are pretty much done at this point. Slide the top back on. It goes back on much easier then taking it off. Put the 6 screws on in the back. put the 4 screws on holding the unit to the bracket. Go back to your car. Attach all the connectors. Mount the drive back to the car with the 4 screws. hook up your battery, and put in the disk. and give it a shot.
Where my dash would almost instantly read an error, it now immediately went to downloading the software. After it downloads, turn on your car and let it run for several minutes while it acquires satellite location. I took this time to put my trunk back together properly. by the time I was done, the navi was all done and waiting for me to press "ok"
All in all, the job took about 30 minutes on my desk. figuring out how to remove the trunk panel to get access to the drive was actually the most time consuming. the job took a little over an hour. I could honestly probably do it again in under 30 minutes. the job is pretty simple but requires a delicate hand and a patient eye once you actually get to the important step. It was honestly worth my time versus paying 358 to ship out my unit to alpine for them to charge me for some guying cleaning the lens. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Im not on the forums that often, so drop me a PM if im failing to reply to the thread. Also, if the images no longer show up, feel free to bug me and ill rehost them somewhere.
Also, just as an added note. this should work for alot of the cars having this problem but is not always 100% the issue. Sometimes certain power electronics may die. It could be a variety of things. this is just a virtually free solution, that could correct your issue.
Hope this helps someone out.
I AM ABOUT TO ATTEMPT THIS TODAY ON MY 2005 Acura RL I get the same message I will keep you posted on how it goes
Searching through the thread I've seen some other people mention they can't eject their disc but have found no replies to that inquiry, and mines been the same for years. An unsteady bouncy gravel road at speed and it might have issues for a while until I do another bumpy road and it 'comes free' and lets me eject and put it back in again, buuut I haven't been able to get it to eject at any point for 3-4 years so now I have 'cannot read disc' junk come up most of the time. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting that disc out?
I have a 08 Acura TL and have the disk error for past few months. I took the unit out and cleaned but it did. It work. I also bought an original updated DVD disc for Mac and that didn’t work either. My backup camera works. Any ideas???
Question for the forum. I tried cleaning my drive and unfortunatly after getting everything back together, I got the dreaded loading / check disc screen and have lost access to touch screen AC / Heat controls on my 03 MDX. My backup cameral still works. I'd say I would not have bothered to try cleaning the drive had I known this, but the reality is I feel I would have ended up in the same place had my battery died down the road. At least I have any idea of what is going on now. As disc read errors began fairly recently, I decided to take in the disc inside to see if it could be read on a computer. This is the Orange NAV disc, BM513A0 version 3.20.
My question is this: Can the Orange NAV disc for the 2003 MDX be read from a computer DVD drive? From what I've gleaned, it looks like the system may be WinCE based and can be modified to an extent (start screen etc.), so I'm guessing the answer is yes. I'm expecting to see .BIN files and all I get is my computer telling me to insert a disc... The disc has some scratches which honesty don't look that bad but if the disc cannot be read on a computer, I'm assuming the disc is at the very least one of the problems if not the problem. I tried cleaning the disc, then reading it on a Windows and Mac computer with three different drives.
Can somebody verify that this disc should be readable on a computer before I plunk down for a new disc?
Question for the forum. I tried cleaning my drive and unfortunatly after getting everything back together, I got the dreaded loading / check disc screen and have lost access to touch screen AC / Heat controls on my 03 MDX. My backup cameral still works. I'd say I would not have bothered to try cleaning the drive had I known this, but the reality is I feel I would have ended up in the same place had my battery died down the road. At least I have any idea of what is going on now. As disc read errors began fairly recently, I decided to take in the disc inside to see if it could be read on a computer. This is the Orange NAV disc, BM513A0 version 3.20.
My question is this: Can the Orange NAV disc for the 2003 MDX be read from a computer DVD drive? From what I've gleaned, it looks like the system may be WinCE based and can be modified to an extent (start screen etc.), so I'm guessing the answer is yes. I'm expecting to see .BIN files and all I get is my computer telling me to insert a disc... The disc has some scratches which honesty don't look that bad but if the disc cannot be read on a computer, I'm assuming the disc is at the very least one of the problems if not the problem. I tried cleaning the disc, then reading it on a Windows and Mac computer with three different drives.
Can somebody verify that this disc should be readable on a computer before I plunk down for a new disc?
Thanks all!
I thought I would close the loop here and answer my own question. Perhaps this will help somebody in the future facing a similar issue / question.
I got the latest 2014 Orange disc update DVD for my 03 MDX in the mail today.
It is readable on a computer, where as my old disc was not. The disc apparently had indeed gone bad.
My Navigation unit and climate controls now work once again (yay!).
As others have said, sometimes the disc is just bad. If you cannot read your disc in a computer, try replacing the DVD first.
Cleaning the drive did not work for me. I ended up sending to Alpine for $358. They replaced the drive mechanism, some power board and provided a new navigation disc.
Only issue is that they must have also updated the software in the unit and it will not allow me to install the custom .bin file to eliminate the nag button and have the cool graphics form Angry Dad. This makes me ANGRY
Anyone have any success getting this mod to re load? Was my favorite mod of all time.
After much frustration and research, I bought a used DVD navigation unit and navigation DVD disc on Ebay. I swapped out my old unit from the trunk of my 2006 TL and it worked. Turned out my original unit had failed and no longer powered up. In my particular case, it was not a dirty disc or dirty lens like others on other threads had experienced. Glad I finally fixed my issue. You can try your luck on Ebay. No guarantees, but it might work for you too.
Cleaning the drive did not work for me. I ended up sending to Alpine for $358. They replaced the drive mechanism, some power board and provided a new navigation disc.
Could you provide or point me to the information about sending to Alpine? I might like to try that. Thanks.
I bought the 2014 update navi disk and sometimes I can get it to load and sometimes not. The thing is that I can put the original 2004 navi disk in and it loads everytime. Not sure what the problem be with unit? Both disk look great so it's not scratches or anything.
Thank you for the links. I was thinking about having my old unit refurbished by Alpine as a back up as these components continue to age and it might be difficult to find spare parts like these. I removed and wiped off the disc that was in the used eBay unit I purchased, which has helped for now. However, I expect these problems to arise again at any time, as we all know.
still doesn’t work I think it could be the power issue .
So My original unit never worked always stayed on please check your disc and some times the screen would go black . So I ordered the mechanism from AliExpress for my 06 TL. Swapped it out and oh I had to put back the other unit bc I forgot my disc was In there so it ejected and all fine the eject button light up but now the new drive thing from AliExpress doesn’t work . It wouldn’t even allow my disc to enter and it’s kinda of hard to insert it . I don’t know . I think it could be the power issue bc it seems when I wiggle the cable to the black harness . It would flicker the navigation display to black and then turn back on to the green message display . I don’t hear the fan or anything spinning . So no luck I guess and I pretty much threw away my old unit bc I was too cocky the AliExpress one would’ve worked right away . Fuck me !!!!
by the way I am selling the unit . I paid 90$ for the unit plus the shipping . I’m selling it for 75$ if anyone wants it . I have out the unit again . Pretty much new just doesn’t work for me I guess . I will allow return shipping .
Before I begin, let me just say im not responsible for any damage you cause to your car. Make sure you are confident with the procedure before just diving in. There is a little but of supplimentary info that I wrote on this thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...8#post14154808
Im sure alot of people are aware of the issues that the Navi dvd Drive eventually develops. for anyone who hasn't happen yet, it is just a variation of a disk read error when starting up the navigation. In my case, the problem developed. I started out with disk read errors every now and then, to consistently every time I went in my car. Sometimes the navi would manage to boot, but as of recent, it just refused to. I had disconnected the battery the other day, and when I reconnected it, the navi tryed to download the software off the disk. As you can imagine, it didnt work, so I was stuck with a black screen that said "Please Check Disk" on it at all times. My screen was 100% useless.
So I decided to dig around. Alot of people just ended up sending their units to Alpine which they repaired for 158$. As of this year, their prices jumped up to 358$ which is pretty ridiculous. I honestly did not feel like paying that and I figured it would be worth trying a small repair since I am comfortable repairing small electronics
So lets get to the good stuff.
Tools
Screwdriver
Micro-Screwdrivers
Isopropyl Alchohol
Q-tips
Paper Towel
1. Remove the DVD from the drive (I forgot this the first time around. Felt really stupid at my desk ready to work and then having to start all over).
2. Disconnect the battery (Make sure your trunk is open)
3. Remove the Navi DVD drive. there is about 5 knob type screws and a push fastner stopping you from peeling back the fabric. I also had to remove the hard plastic panel at the rear of the trunk. Just pull up on that and it should come loose. Make sure you know where each knob came from. Several of them are different. Once you peel back the fabric, there are 4 screws that hold down the dvd drive bracket. you'll see them in pictures below. There are 5 clips attached in the back
4. So now you should have the navi drive sitting on your desk, with the bracket attached. there are 2 screws on each side of the bracket. Remove those and the navi will be free.
5. I took a few pictures of each side so you can familiarize yourself with the unit before you tackle this. One thing I noticed was the it was filthy. I took some isoproply alcohol and wiped down the entire unit to clean the dust. the paper towl was filthy after. Also, check out the production date. December 2003! 9 years till fill the lens with dust is actually pretty decent IMO.
6. Next step is to remove the screws holding the top lid. there are six screws, all of the rear of the unit, that need to be removed. 1 black screw, at the top left of the rear, and another 5 golden screws that are located along the top of the backside. its pretty obvious which ones are holding the top lid down. you only need to remove those 6. Nothing more.
7. Now lift the top metal piece upwards from the rear of the unit. you shouldnt need a ton of force. Maybe a bit to break it loose. the thing hasnt moved in 9 years. Once the lid begins to move, start paying attention the the 4 clips holding it on (picture below). this is all thats holding the unit on. It takes a little of moving around to get it free but its possible without removing the faceplate. the 2 center ones are a bit trickier. I used small screw driver to convince it a bit. I saw no signs of cracking or stress in the plastic, but still take caution to not break the plastics clips. After that, simply remove the top.
8. Now is the tricky part. Cleaning the laser. Originally, my plan was to remove the little screw holding in the center spring clamp. it gives you direct access to clean the lens. Unfortunately, none of my screw drivers were the right size, and its difficult to unscrew since that part is sprung (it moves up and down, making it possible to use any force to unscrew it). Anyways, I took a picture of the lens in the first picture below. its that little tiny shiny sparkle coming from right above the center screw from the clamp. At this point, its up to you how you want to clean your lens. Heres what I did. A regular q-tip was far to big to fit in the hole. I stripped alot (most) of the cotton off, and made sure there was no strands hanging out by rolling the tip in between my fingers (kind of how you used to roll your buggers before you flicked them as a kid). then I dipped the qtip in the isoproply alcohol. It still was a pretty tight fit to get it in, but it manages. you then have to angle it towards the lens since the hole is not directly above it. look at my second picture down to see my angle. I shined a light to get the best view I could of the lens. It is really (very) difficult to see from any angle, but you can occassionally see a glimpse. the lens moves up and down so dont worry about damaging by hitting it to hard, but make sure to be gentle with. After my first wipe, I looked at the lens, and actually noticed some crud on it towards the back. about 75% of it was sparkling clean. Went back and made sure to clean it all.
9. You are pretty much done at this point. Slide the top back on. It goes back on much easier then taking it off. Put the 6 screws on in the back. put the 4 screws on holding the unit to the bracket. Go back to your car. Attach all the connectors. Mount the drive back to the car with the 4 screws. hook up your battery, and put in the disk. and give it a shot.
Where my dash would almost instantly read an error, it now immediately went to downloading the software. After it downloads, turn on your car and let it run for several minutes while it acquires satellite location. I took this time to put my trunk back together properly. by the time I was done, the navi was all done and waiting for me to press "ok"
All in all, the job took about 30 minutes on my desk. figuring out how to remove the trunk panel to get access to the drive was actually the most time consuming. the job took a little over an hour. I could honestly probably do it again in under 30 minutes. the job is pretty simple but requires a delicate hand and a patient eye once you actually get to the important step. It was honestly worth my time versus paying 358 to ship out my unit to alpine for them to charge me for some guying cleaning the lens. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Im not on the forums that often, so drop me a PM if im failing to reply to the thread. Also, if the images no longer show up, feel free to bug me and ill rehost them somewhere.
Also, just as an added note. this should work for alot of the cars having this problem but is not always 100% the issue. Sometimes certain power electronics may die. It could be a variety of things. this is just a virtually free solution, that could correct your issue.
Hope this helps someone out.
Mines up and working finally after MONTHS Thanks again for your post!!
Ive been having the same issues for the past couple months. The only difference between mine is that my Navi dvd is under my passenger seat instead of the trunk... does that change anything or would you recommend the same process?
I know this is a old post, I went a head and tried this method. Plugged it back in and it goes straight to the please wait downloading software for about 5 secs then it goes straight to the please check your disk. Not sure what else to do. Seems like the rom is working but it’s not fully reading the disk. Can you get back to me ASAP thanks.
I know this is a old post, I went a head and tried this method. Plugged it back in and it goes straight to the please wait downloading software for about 5 secs then it goes straight to the please check your disk. Not sure what else to do. Seems like the rom is working but it’s not fully reading the disk. Can you get back to me ASAP thanks.
you can try ordering a new DVD drive from Alibaba. Mine worked for about 6 months but stopped again. I then ordered a Used player from a wreck on ebay. Make sure you get one with the navigation code. Your code won't work.
send to alpine for repair. they will send you a new navi disc too.. its like $350
They suggest sending your disk in the package, removed from unit, when sending in. I am not sure if they actually provide disks-again, I followed the suggestion.
I called them, they asked a few questions, and they generated an email with a specific repair order, which I printed out and included with unit and DVD, when I shipped. Took about 2 weeks, including shipping to CA, and back to MD.
I tried the Ali Express route, but it did not work. The new drive is definitely working (takes the disk in, new please check disk error message), but the problem still remains. I think is your get the "please check disk" error, the problem is likely to be in the electronics, versus "disk read error" which could be the drive itself. I'll put the old drive in and call alpine about getting a repair set up.
did you receive a new navi disc with the new drive? Have you tested your existing disc on a known operational navi system to see if the disc is fine? I am guessing disc
The disk is newer and worked without issue until one day it stopped. I did not send it out to Alpine yet, but I am almost sure it is in the power electronics, not the disk since I am not even getting to the firmware loading part of the bootup..
I went through the same process to get better access to the laser. Unfortunately after getting it all back together, it still did not work. The laser on mine was not dirty either.
I AM ABOUT TO ATTEMPT THIS TODAY ON MY 2005 Acura RL I get the same message I will keep you posted on how it goes
I did the cleaning but nothing it still doesn't work I looked up parts and a place sells lazer and while mechanical parts but I don't know where to find my navi dvd model number
Well my navigation has worked flawlessly for six years of ownership, two weeks after posting my 151k mi 2007 Type-s for sale I got the dreaded error message. Awesome! Try getting top dollar during a pandemic with a broken navigation.
Found this thread and have been screwing with it ever since. Thanks to the OP for creating this it has helped despite my current status. I cleaned it, twice, with no change. Purchased the Aliexpress DVD mechanism, waited over 3 weeks for it, installed it and voila it worked!! Then I went and ejected the navigation disc to test its function, as soon as the disc ejected the orange light on the eject button turned off and never came back on. It'll accept the disc still however now the navigation will not work, says "Navigation unit door is open or No DVD Disc installed. Please check system." and I am unable to reset it through the touchscreen. It says "Please check your disc." when I try to download it during a reset through the navigation diagnostic screen.
Could it be the disc is not compatible with the new drive or the disc is bad? I've got a white 2010 version 4.92 disc (previous owner installed.) Called Acura and Alpine today, absolutely no interest in trouble shooting with me once I mentioned I installed a new dvd mechanism. Told me to mail it in for $358 when I'm sure they know damn well whats wrong with it based on my symptoms.
Any thoughts, saw similar issues here as mine but no true solutions other than sending it to Alpine or buying a used unit on eBay.
Works like a charm now that I got it repaired from Alpine. They stated that the drive mechanism was replaced and a new disc was required. Nothing else was mentioned for repair in my case so idk.
Anyone want to buy a mechanism from AliExpress? Email me
I finally gave in and paid the $358 + shipping to Alpine. A local radio repair shop wanted $396 with no guarantee they could fix it. After purchasing two used Nav Drives on eBay, of which neither worked, the Alpine offer didn't sound so bad. They were efficient and professional. They also threw in a new updated software map disc. So nice having the unit working again.
Hello,
What is the current address and phone number you have for Alpine to send it in?
Thanks
Originally Posted by kevin6z
I finally gave in and paid the $358 + shipping to Alpine. A local radio repair shop wanted $396 with no guarantee they could fix it. After purchasing two used Nav Drives on eBay, of which neither worked, the Alpine offer didn't sound so bad. They were efficient and professional. They also threw in a new updated software map disc. So nice having the unit working again.
Alpine Customer Service (USA), Inc.
2150 195th Street
Torrance, CA 90501
OEM customers may direct their service and repair questions to our Customer Service Group at 1-(800) 421-2284 Ext 860407 or by emailing servicerepair@alpine-usa.com.
you can try ordering a new DVD drive from Alibaba. Mine worked for about 6 months but stopped again. I then ordered a Used player from a wreck on ebay. Make sure you get one with the navigation code. Your code won't work.
ive read and read, when i bought my 05 the screen was punched in, and the dvd rom was missing. just bought used screen unit with a stereo and the dvd rom for the trunk. also tried to clean before installing, but only get the check disc black screen. the stereo works, hard to enter code without the screen but i figured it out. if its missing the xw satellite box will that stop me? idk if its there or not. I'll look when i get to work. also heard something about maybe having to even put ecm from the donor car? if so ive got that too. just replaced the speakers, stereo sounds great! having the screen even just for the radio would be good enough for me. tia.
+1 on the microswitch in the front panel/bezel as posted by JMARK in post #225
gosh bless the internet, the OP, and the subsequent contributors.
I had the same symptoms posted throughout. 6-8 months of navi intermittently not booting, but usually would eventually along the drive, progressively happening more and more often. But the screen worked otherwise. Then, battery failed, replaced, and got the downloading/check disk error which persisted for a couple weeks. Unable to use screen at all, and the clock was wrong and of course could not reset. Got the radio to work by entering code using the radio number buttons as previously posted.
removed the unit per the OP post, the lens looked clean, I cleaned it with e bent pipe cleaner / alcohol, but didn't fix. I didn't try removing the scew/springplate, the pipe cleaner was able to get at the lens just fine.
I had noticed that just like JMARK, the disk would spin for a few seconds and stop. (could tell by listening to drive after ejecting and inserting the disc, which was clean, no scratches, no rings. the eject light was illuminated.
so with the bezel plate removed, I could see the white arm engage the microswitch, but I could push on the (white) arm to move the microswitch just a weeeee bit further. with the top cover of the dvd unit still off, and the bezel off (hanging by the wires) I reconnected all the cables in the trunk and turned on the key. same message to "check the disk". the disc had again, spun for a few seconds and stopped. I pushed on the white arm a tiny bit, and viola. Disc spun up and remained spinning for a while. It started, and loaded the software. Let it sit for 10 min to get the GPS to acclimate. the disc did stop spinning after a while, but it all was working.
I noticed that if i pressed the door "more closed" at several locations along the door's bottom edge, it would move the white arm a little bit more pushing the microswitch a little bit farther, so maybe try that before you take it all apart. I took it out of the car, and then put a couple of very short pieces of shrink-wrap around the white arm, so that it would push on the microswitch "a little more" when the door is closed. See Photo below.
hope this helps someone.
2004 TL, original owner, 263k miles. problem began 2019 June-ish.
