DVD/CD drive won't open

Question

Level 1

0 points

DVD/CD drive won't open

I have an 800mhz G4 iMac. The Superdrive inside of it won't eject anymore. There's nothing in the cd/dvd tray, and it won't open so I can put somehting in it.

Is there a manual override somewhere? Even the Eject button on the keyboard doesn't open it.

Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Feb 21, 2009 11:34 AM

Reply

Answer 1

grishow Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2009 12:16 PM in response to grishow

And to add to this, when opening Disk Utility and clicking on Disc Burning, the Superdrive doesn't even show up. I'm thinking the internal connection is broken or the drive just died.

Reply

Answer 2

spudnuty

Level 5

7,116 points

Feb 21, 2009 12:28 PM in response to grishow

Hey Gris,

I have an 800mhz G4 iMac. The Superdrive inside of it won't eject anymore. There's nothing in the cd/dvd tray
Is there a manual override somewhere?

I have 2 iMac G4 800 MHz machines here and one in my shop. There are two different models of DVD-RW in them:

One is tagged GCA-4020B. If you pull down the drive door with your fingernail it has a white plastic square in the middle of it. If you push in on that square that will eject the tray. The drive doesn't like that and will get seriously out of sync but it is a way to get the drive to eject. I actually had to restart my machine after I did that

The other two have a Pioneer DVR-104 on them. There is no eject button in these but if you look carefully at the bottom of the drives you'll see a series of white nylon gears. If you force the far right one to turn right to left the drive will open. I used a bamboo skewer to do that. Don't use anyting metal it could damage those gears. If it's working properly you only have to move that gear a quarter rotation before the tray position sensor will take over and eject the tray so be careful. If that doesn't happen the position sensor is damaged/broken but you should still be able to eject the tray
Richard

Message was edited by: spudnuty

Message was edited by: spudnuty

Reply

Answer 3

grishow Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2009 5:09 PM in response to spudnuty

Thanks. It looks like I have the Pioneer -I see gears. I used a bamboo skewer and turned those gears far enough to be able to get my fingers behind the disc tray -but it's dead. i had to pull it out manually, and push it back in with no mechanical help. I tried putting a cd in the tray to see if maybe that would spin the drive up, but it all seems dead.

I think I'll be backing it up, erasing it, and taking it in to sell.

Thanks for your help!

Reply

Answer 4

spudnuty

Level 5

7,116 points

Feb 21, 2009 7:56 PM in response to grishow

Hey grishow no problem and thanks for the star.
There was another one here that had the same problem.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9024345&#9024345
Don't know if the battery has anything to do with it but the whole lower housing has to come off to change it so not trivial.
Richard

Reply

Answer 5

spudnuty

Level 5

7,116 points

Feb 21, 2009 8:01 PM in response to grishow

Hey grishow no problem and thanks for the star.
There was another one here that had the same problem.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9024345&#9024345
Don't know if the battery has anything to do with it but the whole lower housing has to come off to change it so not trivial.
If it's a mechanical problem I have seen the tray position switches (sensors) fail an when that happens the tray won't eject or "register" when closed so when that happens the drive won't run since it has no clue where the tray is.

I think I'll be backing it up, erasing it, and taking it in to sell.

These can bring a good price since people like their looks.
Richard

Reply