optical drive won't open

Hello Kevin,

have you tried to go into the main system folder and select: system>library>coreservices>menu extras. There is a file called eject menu (or something like that). Click on it and the eject icon will appear on the menu bar up top. In case your keyboard is having problems. Also maybe restart holding down the eject button. I guess you have already tried to force the drive door open then the paper clip thing.

Hope that helps!

-delton

Before seeing this thread I started a new thread. That thread is here

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9696819&tstart=0#9696819

I have also found the following two solutions since then:

1 - Launch the Terminal utility and type drutil tray eject

2 - There is an AppleScript found here

http://tumbleseed.wordpress.com/products/eject-disks/

that claims to do the job. It says

+Leopard sometimes can be a little reluctant to eject disks and disk images in the Finder. You can click the eject button in the Finder sidebar, drag the disk to the Trash or right-click and choose Eject, but Finder just silently ignores you. You can open Disk Utilty and eject it fine through there (unless there are files open on it of course). This script is so you can eject troublesome disks quickly and easily even in Finder refuses to, _and can also tell you which applications are stopping the disk being ejected_ as opposed to the Finder’s “something is open on that disk, but I’m not telling you what”!+

Note, I haven't tried either since the problem hasn't happened since I used the reboot with mouse key down approach.

Message was edited by: RobertVJ

I have the same problem on my mac pro, did you get this sorted?

So I've had the same problem as above and followed the advice about the eject menu and that is in the tool bar but on clicking on it the 'eject superdrive' option is greyed out and so I still can't open the superdrive.
A restart sorts this out but it keeps happenning.
Any ideas?
Chris

I’m having the same problem. The root system folder library has no core services folder. The holding the mouse button down trick doesn’t work, and the disk doesn’t show up in Disk Utility. I’ve been hearing the drive spinning all day.

I find it really hard to believe you have no core services folder. Remember that is where the finder lives. If the finder works then chances are that is where the OS found it.

Anyways, might I suggest something, open a terminal window and type the following;
+drutil -drive 1 tray open+
for your lower drive and;
+drutil -drive 2 tray open+
for your upper drive.

Also have a look in Activity monitor to make sure something hasn't locked up or taken ownership of the drive.

I finally resolved the problem by resetting the PMU. Unplugged everything, including the power cord. Left everything off for a minute, plugged everything back in, and rebooted, resetting the PMU. Disk showed up in the Finder and I could eject it. Hope this helps someone looking for an answer to the same problem.

There IS a paperclip hole. Switch off your mac, open the side panel, pull out the top left hand draw slowly (to which your optical drive(s) is (are) attached with a cable (hence slowly, so not to pull the cable which is long enough to fully take out the draw assembly). Your paperclip hole should then be visible.

So I have a similar problem in that my DVD tray rarely opens when I press the Eject button. The grayed out icon appears on the screen but the tray does nothing at all. Same if I use the Eject menu, terminal command, whatever ... nothing opens.

If I log out and then back in it will usually open but this is not a great solution as must quit everything I'm in the middle of doing just to put a DVD in the tray.

I doesn't sound like anyone has a solution to this but I thought I'd ask. Thanks.

MacBookPro?


remove the battery, press and hold the power button to do a SMC reset
then place the battery back in then turn on the system then once grey screen appears before the apple logo shows, press and hold CMD OPTION P R during start up until it restarts again and chimes then release.

I'm having the same problem, not being able to open my tray. The eject button on the keyboard (next to F12) doesn't work (shows the eject thingy, but nothing happens), the eject button in the menu is greyed out, `drutil -drive 1 tray open` doesn't do anything. It only opens at reboot time, once I've put a cd in the drive it's not being recognized, doesn't show up in finder, itunes whatever.

I think I'm having the drive replaced because it's completely useless this way.

This has been an OSX problem for YEARS !

If some app crashes while using the DVD-ROM drive, then OSX just has a catatonic fit and withdraws into la-la land.

It happens to me 2-3 times per year, and infuriates me.

IS THERE SOME WAY to FORCE osx to behave, reset the drive WITHOUT REBOOTING?

(I'm in the middle of converting a long DV video file, and don't want to wait 3.5 hours before I can use my DVD drive again!)

I've tried "drutil -drive 2 tray open" and it does Nothing at all (on my DVR-112).

(This is the ONE place PC/Windows really beats the Mac hands down.)

Can I do anything in Activity Monitor? What / How ?

I got it open...

I fiddled around with drutil in a terminal window.

Nothing seemed to work; I tried lots of status commands, tray open, tray close, info, etc.

Then (who knows why) I used "drutil -drive 2 eject" and it worked !

(Note: I have two DVD-ROM drives, and the #2 drive was the one that was stuck)

Maybe all the previous commands hit on a "magic combination" that allowed the "eject" to work... Sorry I can't be more specific.

Now the drive opens and closes okay, and I didn't have to stop my compression.

Hope this helps someone.

Hmm, that's interesting. I'll have to try the "...eject" next time I have a burn session freeze on me. (You know, where it's supposed to be burning a DVD, but the burning application sits there and churns with the beach ball, but it's not really doing anything, and it never comes out of it.) Had to resort to rebooting in the past. Happens a few times per year, which isn't much considering how many I burn, but it's annoying when it happens.

I was searching for this stuff because I used to use option-F12 (Logitech keyboard) to open the second drive, but it stopped working, possibly because of the latest Logitech software update I installed. I have the previous Logitech update if I need to revert, but the new version has some other nice features, so this workaround isn't bad. I always (literally, always) have a terminal window open anyway, so I just did a few quick aliases for my drive open/close/eject functions. I'd still rather have a quick single key-combo, but this isn't bad.

It's tempting to write a little script-application that would figure out if it was open or closed and then do the opposite, but looks like the only drutil bit that might tell me that information is the "poll" option, and that keeps polling, so it doesn't self-terminate, so things get messy from a coding standpoint. It's probably not worth that much work to me. 🙂

Thanks for the tip!

Has anyone figured out what the f this is about?! It's happened to me 6 times in the 8 months I've had my Mac Pro. Yes, I've had application crashes but I can't say it was the cause every time. Even if that is the cause, can't Apple release a patch or something to automatically reset the drive after a crash? They know a crash happened because they can flash a message and ask me to send a report, so why can't they just simply reset the drive? Really. Why? C'mon! Is anyone from Apple listening?! Every application that touches the drive tells me it's busy. It is not. Terminal commands don't work. I'm not sticking a f'ing paperclip in my drive because I'll probably f'ing drop it in there and then Apple will tell me it's my fault.

Message was edited by: jrusso90254