I've had this player for many years and couple of days ago it started to have problems: When I load the disc something inside makes two quiet sounds like "rrrrrrrt" with period of about a second between them and machine doesn't recognize the disc type (all the indicators in front screen stay lit) thus not responding to playback controls or spinning the disc either. This has happened randomly couple of times before but now it is pretty much constant, maybe in 1 out of 20 attempts machine knows there is LD inside. When I manage to trick it there's absolutely no flaws in playback, everything works like a charm. Can anyone spot the problem by the symptoms above, I'm mainly interested to know if its something I can fix myself or does it require proper servicing?

do you hear the sound when the disc it self is lifted up for playback? could almost seem like the belt on the drive that pulls the disc up is worn.

No, those two sounds are first to come right after closing the tray and also when I power up the player with disc in and it happens to fail. Strangest thing is that I gave it a try again tonight and managed to watch 2 movies, meaning 4 disc loads which all went fine straight in first attempt, so the problem doesn't seem to be that constant after all

The player should give out two of those sounds when powered up, meaning the laser assembly is setting itself into place.

I would bet you need to replace your laod belt, or at least clean it and the pulleys as well. That's usually the most common cause of intermittent playback. At least start with that.