Opening Locked DVD Cases (The Green/Red Lock Kind)

I will be walking you through how to open locking DVD cases that have the Green/Red lock symbol on the edge of the case. If you have the kind with the red bar, see this instructable.

Of course, I do not encourage you to use this for illegal purposes. I figured this out due to bringing home DVDs from the library that did not get unlocked.

Step 1: Materials

In order to unlock the DVD case, the least that you can get by with are two very strong magnets. The magnets pictured below are harvested from a hard drive. Generally, the older the drive, the larger and more powerful the magnets. Some new hard drives and some laptop drives have magnets which are too small and weak to use for this purpose.

The other item that can come in handy here is a screwdriver with a small regular tip. You can also use a knife, icepick, etc... as long as it has a tip small and sharp enough to grab the plastic.

Comments

[sokamiwohali]

If you go to lowes, or home depot (or any hardware store for that matter if your country doesnt have a lowes or home depot) you can find "super magnets) that can pick up 15+ lbs. i am sure these magnets are strong enough...they are cheap to. they also have an integrated bolt that you could slide a square tube or length of wood ~1" thick, and drill a series of holes to adjust for the location of the lock bars. then you could just slide the bar w/o a screw driver...OR you could do the same thing with a 5lb magnet. they are small, and easy to work with...hope i didnt ruin your ible...maby you could add this idea to your ible...multiple methods of opening a dvd box.

[waynevanwijk]

Thanks so much for the instructable. I borrowed a disk from my brother and for some reason it was still locked. Now I can watch it. Hooray!

[Crowyhead]

Or, here's an idea from a librarian -- if you end up with a DVD case that didn't get unlocked, how about if you take it back to the library and have it unlocked, rather than helping to increase the number of empty DVD cases I find on my shelves?

[kawliga]

Why presume that opening the case will result in theft? Do you truly expect thieves to overrun the library with magnets? And why waste the gas?

[Tokesone]

Well after working all day then going to the library or video store to get a movie its bloody annoying when you get home to realize the twit working there forgot to unlock the case, until reading this guide I would just rip the case open and tell them its there fault for not opening it.

[mg0930mg]

Why drive all the way back, and do it again, when you can do it yourself. He say don't use anything here for illegal purposes. Which, stealing would be. Please, try to be nicer.

[Justtony]

I'm sure you meant to sound polite, but you didn't come off that way. Maybe you could edit that comment so people won't think less of you.

[wdmartin]

I'm a librarian too, and I was very glad to find this tutorial!

A DVD that one of our patrons requested through Interlibrary Loan arrived locked. We don't lock ours, so we don't have the device for unlocking; and the original lending library is 500 miles away. Sending it back to get unlocked so they could send it to us again was not practical.

I can appreciate wanting to protect a library's collection of DVDs ... but please, O my library brethren, unlock the case if you're sending it to another library!

[DELETED_yoghurtsniffer]

(removed by author or community request)

[Uru Wolf]

not on a CD. A CD works optically so earth magnets would have little to no effect. I guess if you somehow got a magnet strong enough you could rip the metal layer out of the CD. If you want to destroy them just microwave them for a few seconds ;)

[T0BY]

A magnet wouldn't make any difference at all as the metal layer in a DVD/CD is usually aluminium and so is not magnetic.

[Shadowfury]

Aluminium is very slightly magnetic. It's called paramagnetic. It is weakly effected by magnetism. With such weak magnets, you will not see the aluminium fly off the CD. I have a Neodymium magnet that has a 210 lb pull strength and it does not effect CDs in the slightest.

[Uru Wolf]

Ah, well there you are then. Magnets are not a problem for CD's then.

[_soapy_]

If you moved the magnets fast enough across the DVD, you'd get eddy currents. If you moved the magnets superhumanly fast, you'd perhaps cause the aluminium to be repelled, or even burn up due to heating... But no, not going to happen with everyday stuff.

[GorillazMiko]

:-O

Nice job! I have never seen these kind of locks, but they look really high-tech to keep burglars like monkeys and Yu-Gi-Oh! card collectors away. (Kidding).
Nice job!

[rockiesjason]

There is another type yet with a yellow bar that works similarly, I think Blockbuster uses them. If I can get ahold of one, I'll do another instructable for it.

[tazzelmcbazzel]

the yellow ones look very similiar so they'll prob work the same.

[_soapy_]

No, the yellow bars in Blockbuster are simply a set of 6 clips that have to be pressed at the same time. It's impossible to do with your hands, but they drop it into the tool that grips it, and out they come. No magnets as far as I am aware.

[Thelonelysandwitch]

all I do is get a good grip and tear it open, its hard but it works

[cato2]

Thanks for this. I am sick of buying DVDs where the bored checkout chick hasn't bothered to unlock the damn box. I usually have to drill the bastard out & ruin the case.

[rocketman221]

just use a hammer. much faster and easier.

[Samee]

Or, here's an idea from a mom that lives in a rural area and doesn't want to waste $8 in gas for an extra trip to the library because the absent-minded librarian forgot the lock: Two "Tot Lok" magnetic "keys" (for childproofing cabinet locks) work awesome for this purpose.