Why won't my optical drive open unless there is a disc in it?

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Why won't my optical drive open unless there is a disc in it?

I bought my eMac (1.25Ghz, USB 2.0, MacOS 10.5.8) from my school last Friday, and have been fixing little glitches, deleting old files, etc. I've finally gotten everything in almost perfect working order except the optical drive. The drive itself seems fine and reads CD's no problem. The only problem is that the drive won't open on it''s own, I have to use the little paperclip hole everytime I want to open it. However, once the disc is in, it will read and eject the disc normally, but once the drive is empty again, I have to use the paperclip to get it open. I don't know if it's a hardware or software malfunction. Help!?

P.S. It also spits out DVD's. I thought it was supposed to be able to read them (it reads CD's just fine), but it just gives DVD's back.

eMac-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Oct 30, 2011 6:21 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 30, 2011 7:30 PM in response to Josh08x

Depress the F12 key (for a few seconds) & the drive should open. Also, depressing the mouse on startup opens the drive.

Also, you can add an Eject Item to the Menu Bar

Open a Finder window and navigate to /System/Library/Core Services/ Menu Extras.
Double-click the Eject.menu item in the Menu Extras folder.

The Eject menu item will be added to your Mac’s menu bar. It will have the eject icon, which is a chevron with a line below it. If you click on the Eject menu item, it will display all of the CD/DVD drives attached to your Mac, and provide the option to ‘Open’ or ‘Close’ each drive, depending on its current state.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 2

Josh08x Author

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Oct 30, 2011 8:34 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

F12 just opens Expose, and the Eject Item just says "No Drives". =/

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Answer 3

BDAqua

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Oct 31, 2011 11:07 AM in response to Josh08x

Does iTunes eject it?

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Answer 4

Josh08x Author

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Oct 31, 2011 2:28 PM in response to BDAqua

No. The option is highlighted, but when I click it, it doesn't do anything.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

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Oct 31, 2011 2:52 PM in response to Josh08x

Does dragging it from the Desktop to the Trash work?

Open Terminal app & paste in this the hit return...

drutil tray eject

or...

drutil tray open

or...

drutil list

Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

Does it boot into Open with CMD+Option+o+f ?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642

reset-nvram (press Enter)

set-defaults (press Enter)

reset-all (press Enter)

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Answer 6

Josh08x Author

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Oct 31, 2011 5:20 PM in response to BDAqua

So I reset the PRAM and now it will open when I boot it up and hold down the mouse, but the issue persists once I'm logged in. Eject in iTunes won't work, the eject button won't work, the extra eject button when added to the menu bar doesn't work.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

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Oct 31, 2011 6:18 PM in response to Josh08x

Does the Terminal command work now?

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Answer 8

Josh08x Author

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Oct 31, 2011 6:27 PM in response to BDAqua

It does not.

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Answer 9

BDAqua

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Oct 31, 2011 6:47 PM in response to Josh08x

Seems it must be a Software issue, does the Install Disc still spit out?

At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware>Disk Burning & report what it says, like ...

Interconnect: ATAPI

Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)

Cache: 2048 KB

Reads DVD: Yes

CD-Write: -R, -RW

DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL

Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes

Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes

Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD

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Answer 10

Josh08x Author

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Nov 1, 2011 8:06 PM in response to BDAqua

It says something to the effect of "no disc burning device found, if you ar eusing an external device, make sure it is installed and connected properly."

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Answer 11

BDAqua

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Nov 1, 2011 9:54 PM in response to Josh08x

Is this the Internal? 2 of my 3 eMac internal Opticals died a very early death, as well as the HDDS. 😟

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Answer 12

Josh08x Author

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Nov 2, 2011 1:33 PM in response to BDAqua

It is the internal one. I don't believe it could be dead, because it works just fine when the disc is in it, it's just getting it open in order to put the disc in without having to do it manually every time.

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Answer 13

BDAqua

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Nov 2, 2011 7:32 PM in response to Josh08x

Well, that's an unusual problem, but my geuss is it's still a really muxed OS install, or a Hardware problem.

I think I'd try the free demo of Dragon Burn at this point & see if it can eject it...

http://dragonburn.com/dragon_burn.asp

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Answer 14

Josh08x Author

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Nov 5, 2011 10:28 AM in response to BDAqua

I took off the face plate inside the the tray to make sure there was a spot for a Airport Extreme card (there is, and I'll be getting one =D ), and I noticed an eject button on the disc drive itself (right hand side), upon pressing that, it opened up just fine, so we can assume the drive works fine, however, I also noticed a little green light on the left hand side that is not illuminated. Should it be? Does this help at all? It's strange that the eject button on the drive works, and then it reads the CD I put in it, and will eject it with the button on the keyboard, but once I took the disk out it became inert again. =S

Also, when I put the disk in, I went to the about this Mac, and then to ATA and it showed this:

Without a disk it shows this:

I think I had originally been looking at Serial-ATA which just says:

This system does not contain any Serial-ATA devices. If you have any Serial-ATA devices installed, please check that they are connected and powered on.

I hope this helps.

Message was edited by: Josh08x

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