Brand new disk drive doesn't work. HELP!

Hey all.

About 6 months ago my bluray drive died, so my dad who works for an in surance copany sent it to some people to get it fixed for free. Well, they changed the power supply and the disc drive, but when I got it back the other day (yes, they took that long), there was a white plastic stick thing blocking the disc entry. I couldn't be bothered to send it off again so looked around for some info and saw it had an easy fix, so I took it apart and manually reset the drive. The plastic thing went down and all appeared to be fine. I put it all back together and...it won't read anything. It's like the ps3 doesn't even recognise the drive. The discs go in and out alright, so it's got power, but it doesn't spin or anything. I unbuilt it again and notice that the laser isn't lighting up. The laser base moves around on it's track no problem.. What the hell is wrong with it? The laser was coming on whilst the plkastic thingy was up, so why wouldn't it work now? Could static have shot off my fingers? I'm really really clueless as to how to fix this.

Anyone with a bit of experience at solving this problem maybe could help me out please. Thanks.

I think you are in over your head here. Good luck though. 

Sounds like they never bothered checking if the PS3 was working before sending it back to you. You can still get into the menu's and play PSN games, right?

All the ribbons secure? don't know what model you have, but on the 320s, the main ribbon from the laser to the motherboard can be a nightmare to hook up. Only way to do it is to assemble the drive on the PS3. In that you first connect the ribbon to the PS3 motherboard then plug it into the laser, but you can't plug it in the laser with the top cover on the drive... Anyway, maybe that bottom ribbon pulled out of the motherboard. (that is if you have the same model that I do, which you probably don't.)

I guess the laser is bad. A bad laser will keep the disk from spinning up. If you can find the serial number on the laser (KEM something or other) you can buy lasers from Ebay. They used to be about 15 bucks, but I think they've gone up in price since then. Think they're in the 40's now.

One other thing for you to worry about... if your PS3 is old enough to have a daughterboard attached to the Drive. Then know that the daughter board is married to the motherboard. In that only the daughterboard that was on the unit previously will work with the motherboard. If they didn't reinstalled the old daughter board, then you'll likely never get it working again. Hopefully they didn't do that, or that you have a newer PS3 that doesn't have a daughterboard to worry about. You can clearly see the daughterboard underthe drive if it has one, though.  http://www.ehow.com/how_12107120_marry-ps3-drive-board-ps3-motherboard.html