Famicom Disk System - games fail to load

[LadyLyndis]

I've got my FDS all hooked up, and it gives me the lovely "please load a disk" screen. But when I put in one of my game disks, nothing happens. No loading message, no error message, nothing. It doesn't seem to realize that there's a disk in there. I've tried with two or three, but I'm afraid to try them all for fear it might damage them somehow. Nothing on the internet seems to address this particular problem. Is there anything I can do short of buying a new system?

I decided to take it apart per lukemorse1's instructions on youtube to see if the belt was the problem, but the belt looks fine. However, I did notice that the disk reader seems to be farther back than it ought to be. I can push it forward but it just springs back to where it was before. Could this have anything to do with it?

Edit: I just noticed that there's a crack on the edge of the... what do you call it? The green thing. Motherboard? On the metal plate that you can remove, there's a tab that you have to push inside the casing when you put the plate back on, and it looks like the corner of the motherboard was bent when someone put it back on (probably for a belt repair?) I have a feeling that might very well be a problem.

[Oldskool]

I was gonna say check the belt, but if you said it looks fine then that can't be it.

Do you have a way to take pictures to show what you are talking about?

[LadyLyndis]

Here's a picture of the crack: http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8467/crackj.jpg Though it's not just a crack, that corner can wiggle.

Here's what the disk reader looks like when I'm not pushing on it: http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9210/outtc.jpg

And here's what it looks like when I push it all the way in: http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/8459/97443322.jpg

[ooXxXoo]

That crack in that upper corner of the motherboard is most likely causing you troubles, since important traces run through it and now severed....Don't trash it, is fixable, you can add jumper wires between those broken joints in both sides...

[jb143]

Just to clairfy a little, you want to solder jumper wires to the pads, not the traces themselves. Just follow the broken traces to a solder pad on each side (and the ones on the broken corner) and jumper a wire between them. Should be a pretty easy fix if that's the only problem.

[Oldskool]

Yeah that crack definetely looks like the issue. I'd try jumping the connections like the other guys mentioned.

[LadyLyndis]

I don't know anything about soldering, but I'm gonna take it in to some guys that maybe do and let them know what you all said. What if the crack affects something on the other side too? Will the soldering fix that as well?