DVD Tray doesnt eject in vertical position only

Hello All
I have been having a peculiar problem with my Sony DVD RW Drive 810A.
I have been having this drive for the past 2 years and it has worked fine so far.
I have installed it vertically since my machine sits vertical because of space constraints.
Now for the past few months when I press the eject button on the drive the drive tries to eject but I hear knocking noises and it doesnt come out. However I can eject by selecting that from the windows explorer though !!
Later on it came to a point thta even this wouldnt work.
The only way I can now eject this out is if I use the safety pin that comes along with and I poke it into the hole below the tray.

These are the observations :
1) The tray doesnt eject when in a vertical position.

2) If I have a DVD in the drive then it ejects when I press the eject button even in vertical position.

3) The tray works FINE in a horizontal position.The eject button works and the drive is all fine.


Any idea what this could be ? Seems it has to do with something that props in when the drive is only in a vertical position.The software and hardware components seems to be fine since it all works fine if the drive is operated horizontally..

Really puzzled.Pls help me.
Thanks folks

Alex

 

Usually are such drives complicated to repair ? I just want to know if I can take it apart and try my hand at it, it its a small issue. Since it works fine horizontally I am thinking if the vertical position might be because of a small glitch