Mac eats DVD - any ideas on how to remove it?

[sakwoya]

Hi all

 

OK - I have a Mac on the network, just one, shiny, posh looking machine which has taken up proportionately more of my time than any other bit of kit that I can think of.

 

This one is an iMac desktop and is now maybe 18 months old. Most recently it decided to keep hold of a blank DVD that was inserted into the narrow, designer 'cool', slot on the side (yup - the one with no pin hole emergency eject thingy)

 

So here I am, tried all the 'fixes' I can find on the www but still with the DVD in there and the eject mechanism clicking away all the time.

 

So - questions - any body fixed this without tearing the machine apart to get at the drive internally (and looking at the guides that seems to be a big job)?

 

or

 

Does the Mac have some software way of disabling the DVD drive so that it stops clicking and whirring??

 

Graeme

[pooley]

Tried:-

in terminal with

 

drutil tray open

drutil tray eject

 

or

 

Reboot depressing the Mouse and it should eject

 

or

 

leave it in the dvd for approx 10 mins unattended it should auto-eject

 

or

 

Fold a piece of card and gently wedge/hold the dvd from spinning, on booting the mac should forcibly eject it as it wont spin.

 

or (and I have tried this)

 

Holding the Mac with the dvd drive facing down (were going to get gravity to help) press eject and gently shake the Mac and hope the dvd comes out.

 

After that I suppose you will need to dismantle it

 

Good luck

[SYNACK]

Iced teaspoon down its throat (drive)? how will it stay thin if it does not eject what it swallows :D

 

In seriousness though I hope that the above methods provided by pooley help as taking those apart is quite tedious.

 

 

Other things to try are:

• Holding c while rebooting which should eject it if it is not bootable
  
• shut computer down, while holding the eject button on the wireless keyboard, turn computer on, eject as designed!!!
  
• As soon as you hear the start-up sound, hold down the function key (fn) along with the eject symbol key on the top right corner of the keyboard until it ejects
  
• Some sites sugest that the pinhole may be gone but the manual eject point is still in the top edge of the slot and can be reached with a paperclip as before
  
• pushing in another cd a short way to try and trigger the sensor (not sure about this one)
  

[MrEprise]

A little while back, our Technology teaching assistant brought in her Macbook with a similar problem - wanted to reinstall MacOS, put disc 1 in, a few whirrs and clicks, then nothing. Wouldn't boot, but wouldn't give her back the disc no matter what she and another tech teacher (who loves Macs and never stops going on about them - I swear they're breeding down there...) tried.

 

So she drops it into us hoping that we will be able to sort it for her. So I thought i'd give it a go having never touched a Mac previously (hey, it's just another computer, right?)

 

After trying pretty much everything I found on the net to no avail, I was about to take the macbook apart when for some reason I decided to (just for the hell of it) hold down the eject key on the keyboard while powering on which lo and behold after about 10 minutes (yes, I kept it pressed for that long) the DVD decided to suddenly pop out!

 

Who'd have thought, eh?

[mikeglover]

had a similar issue with a MacBook. Took ages to get out. As discussed already hold down Eject or C while switching it on.

 

I think I manage to get it out by holding the MacBook upside down so gravity was pushing the dvd the other way and doing the eject poweron trick.

 

Good Luck

[mac_shinobi]

A work around that works for me is to shutdown and restart holding the alt key down until i get the option to choose between mac and windows. Then it spits out the trapped disc.

 

Short of that maybe see if you open disk utility and see if that allows you to eject it - if not then it will most likely be a take it apart and replace the optical drive and put it back together again or at least take it apart and get the disc out.

 

iFixit: Do-it-yourself Mac & iPod Repair

 

There are also video guides on youtube

 

Below site I use for parts

 

TheBookYard : UK Apple spare parts specialist

 

Intel iMac Repair Video Released

[tmcd35]

I used to get this alot on my old MacBook Pro. I think the Mac OS is the best there is but there hardware is actually quiet shocking!

 

AFAIR it's caused by the mac overheating and the aluminium case warping out of shape. Doesn't help, atleast on the MacBook Pros, by Apples insistance of limiting fan speed which helps cause over heating - grrr.

 

Any who - A solution. If all else false, it's not under warranty and you don't mind the usual disclaimers (you are on your own!) - then I've found this works when everything has been tried and failed.

 

You need a thin business card and some double-sided selotape. Wrape the tape around one end of the business card and put the taped end just through the drive slot. Now hit the eject key.

 

The CD/DVD should start to eject and stick to the tape on the card allowing you to pull the disc out with the card.

[mac_shinobi]

I used to get this alot on my old MacBook Pro. I think the Mac OS is the best there is but there hardware is actually quiet shocking!

 

AFAIR it's caused by the mac overheating and the aluminium case warping out of shape. Doesn't help, atleast on the MacBook Pros, by Apples insistance of limiting fan speed which helps cause over heating - grrr.

 

Any who - A solution. If all else false, it's not under warranty and you don't mind the usual disclaimers (you are on your own!) - then I've found this works when everything has been tried and failed.

 

You need a thin business card and some double-sided selotape. Wrape the tape around one end of the business card and put the taped end just through the drive slot. Now hit the eject key.

 

The CD/DVD should start to eject and stick to the tape on the card allowing you to pull the disc out with the card.

 

That reminds me I did something similiar with a power book a few years back when it was playing up - I used my debit card and some tweezers - so basically using the debit / credit type card to hold the cd at the same level as the eject hole and the tweezers to gently pry the disc out - I also got an old dry sponge and ripped / cut a bit off so that I didnt scratch the disc with the tweezers

[sakwoya]

Hi everybody

 

apologies for the delay in reply but attack-a-mac was low on the priority list....

 

Thanks to everybody above for their tips and hints - I've tried the lot (often times) but, alas, the Mac still has DVD indigestion.

 

I'm quite happy to skin a laptop but gutting a Mac - i.e. I don't mind taking a laptop to bits but getting into this Mac looks to be problematical (you sucker the screen off??) and my measly budget is not up to sending the thing off to be fixed so - another question (which I could maybe Google but.....)

 

Can I run an external USB DVD read/write rom from the Mac and would it just 'show up' on the GUI as a normal drive? If so - any suggested makes?

 

Graeme

[Spuddyboy]

Have a go at taking it apart. Myself and one of my technicians took one apart the other week. It looks daunting at first, but it isn't that bad once you are inside (there is suprisingly alot of room).

 

Just think of it as a laptop with more room to work inside.

 

Good luck.

[mac_shinobi]

Hi everybody

 

apologies for the delay in reply but attack-a-mac was low on the priority list....

 

Thanks to everybody above for their tips and hints - I've tried the lot (often times) but, alas, the Mac still has DVD indigestion.

 

I'm quite happy to skin a laptop but gutting a Mac - i.e. I don't mind taking a laptop to bits but getting into this Mac looks to be problematical (you sucker the screen off??) and my measly budget is not up to sending the thing off to be fixed so - another question (which I could maybe Google but.....)

 

Can I run an external USB DVD read/write rom from the Mac and would it just 'show up' on the GUI as a normal drive? If so - any suggested makes?

 

Graeme

 

Yes it will work but as to whether it will show up on the desktop like an external hard drive or not Im not sure as not got one myself to try out.

 

I would either go with a lacie drive or get the external caddie seperately and just get a pioneer or any other dvd rw drive ( obviously taking into consideration what interface it has inside ie IDE or SATA ( pata and sata respectively )

 

something like below - not sure where addonics is based though - seems the USA so you may get charged a bit more due to tax and P&P

 

Zebra Drive Enclosures from Addonics

[dirtydog]

Hi all

So here I am, tried all the 'fixes' I can find on the www but still with the DVD in there and the eject mechanism clicking away all the time.

 

Tried:-

Reboot depressing the Mouse and it should eject

This usually works for me!

 

AFAIR it's caused by the mac overheating and the aluminium case warping out of shape. Doesn't help, atleast on the MacBook Pros, by Apples insistance of limiting fan speed which helps cause over heating - grrr.

 

there is a little util called fancontrol which installs to system prefs. Its a great tool that lets you set maximum temps and minimum fan speeds etc - i use it on a macbook and although its noisier it stops you from being able to cook on your thighs!

[dubbish]

If you can get hold of a plastic modeling tool there is a mechanism in the drive bay that acts as a manual eject near the center and if you hold down the eject key at the same time it should just pop straight out of the drive.

[billabong]

Turn off the computer and on again. While it's booting press the eject button.

[Robbocop]

If the drive is clicking then I can only guess that the mechanism is damaged or faulty, so I'm not surprised that all these various methods of force ejecting in software don't work. It's probably trying to eject already, but can't. Strangely, the suggestion of partly inserting a second disk might help. If the stuck disk is misaligned, you might get lucky and nudge it back into position so that the eject works normally. I'll see if anyone here thinks there's still any kind of mechanical eject lever in there though.

[mbrunt]

Is this mac not under warranty????? Send it back for repair!