superdrive won't draw discs in

Thank you for the info about using drutil eject. I had the same issue here, with it not allowing any disc beyond half way, after using drutil eject with the disc as far in as I could get it, I can now put discs in once again. It's not quite as good as it once was, I really have to push discs into the drive now, almost forcing it in, but that's a huge improvement from not being able to use it at all, so thank you!

I thought I had a defective disc drive on my Mid-2010 iMac because the computer wouldn't suck any disc into the slot. Tried a brand new Microsoft Office DVD and it just sat there, didn't even trigger the drive at all.

Then I read CaoYong's advice to push harder than feels comfortable. I put some force behind it and after a second I felt it slide in and load up on my screen. Definitely felt weird, like I was going to break something, but it worked.

In my case it had been over two years since I had used the disc drive, so I'm guessing a ton of dust/debris accumulated in the drive, especially since I did some remodeling around the house.

Mechanical blocking occurs in my alu Intel iMac 2008 (Mavericks) when I insert an old fashioned audio CD with copyprotection.

Never mind whether I want to play or rip it through Itunes or other programs.

Using drutil solves the problem of blocking. The specific CD however cannot be played on the iMac.

The drive concerned is the standard build-in superdrive.

I had exactly the same problem. I tried EVERYTHING that I found as a solution in many different forums and nothing. Eventually, I put my mind to work. Since, I cleaned the lenses and it is still not working and since the cd goes only 1/3 in and other users say that for them in goes 3/4 or 1/2, then... the superdrive tray didn't "rest" in the right position. So what I did and it work and I totally recommend it if nothing else works for you, is:
1. I went to "terminal" and typed "drutil eject", didn't press enter yet.

2. broke a blank cd (credit cars are small for that) in half and put it in as much as I could

3. pressed enter on terminal and simultaneously start moving the cd around

4. I did that for several minutes, the tray might not go to the right position immediately... but eventually it will!

I hope this helps someone in the future!

I too followed the reset SMC procedure which has worked for me twice in the past with this same issue, but today it didn't work.

I came across this "drutil eject" command and gave that a go using Terminal - follow these instructions here.

It didn't work, but I persisted, repeating the command a second and third time, each time trying to push the CD in, and each time it just went in almost half way and then hit the hard stopper...

then i tried "drutil eject internal" even though my macbook does not have two drives, and I noticed the sound it made was different from the sound it made each time i had done the previous command. I repeated this step around 3 times, and then noticed the hard stopper was gone and the disc slid all the way in and everything worked like new again.

try that.

my MBP hadn't been used in a LONG time... the drive wouldn't respond (wouldn't draw in discs). tried shoving it in all the way (even used a tiny screwdriver to push in as far as it would go and a spring mechanism pushed it back out enough to grab. What finally worked for me was to shove the disc in rapidly (like trying to throw it in) with a sharp motion. the drive woke up, read the disc, and began to work correctly (so far). next, i'm handing it over to my wife, who wants to duplicate some dvds she made from video camera files. hope this helps someone.

I had the same issue after having to force eject a CD that I was given by a friend. The CD had 2 layers of Laserprinter CD Labels on it and the machine was struggling to read it. It sounded like a sputtering engine when it was spinning the disc. I force ejected the disc but the disc never ejected even though the dialog box that appeared said it did. I wound up restarting the computer and the disc ejected itself on restart. I noticed an unfamiliar hum coming from the computer and tried to insert a standard CD (without a label on it) but the drive wouldn't draw it in. I pushed it in as far as I could and it touched something that I could tell was spinning. It was as though the SuperDrive was spinning a CD that was not even there.

I check "About this Mac" and Disk Utility and my SuperDrive was not showing up on either. It was as if the SuperDrive wasn't there, although I could hear the hum of it spinning without a disc.

I restarted the machine...That did not work.

I restarted from a boot drive and opened Disc Utility to Repair Permissions and Repair Disk and restarted...Still did not work

I reset both the SMC and the PRAM...THAT WORKED

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

FIXED

This works - I cut a blank CD in half and then offered the half to the optical bay slot and winkled it further in, past the mechanical block meanwhile I did drutil eject on Terminal. This brought the drive back to life an blockage cleared. I kept hold of the corner of the CD not wanting it to disappear in to the drive never to re-appear!! This is very much a mechanical problem. The inactive drive could be seen on About this Mac and could be seen but faint grey on Disc Utility. Happened after installing Yosemite - there may or may not be a connection. Thank you foulfa.🙂

I tried many ways from this forum.

First I tried putting a disc as far as I could into the SuperDrive.

Second, drutil eject.

It didn't work. OK new try.

I again tried to put a disc as far as I could.

And then I lifted up MacBook Pro on the side of SuperDrive and push the disc in. Ha ha ha IT WORKED!!!

Thanks to all.

2011 21.5" iMac with any disc presented to the SuperDrive coming up against a dead stop.

Tried a couple simple fixes before resetting NVRAM, an audible click was heard from the drive as whatever it was blocking the disc retracted and since then i have been trouble free.

Good luck

**FIXED**

I just had this problem and here is how I fixed it.

1. Using a credit card, find where the superdrive is getting held up. It was near the top of the drive for me (i.e. closer to the screen).

2. Open Terminal (Open Applications --> Utilities --> Terminal).

3. Playing with the card on the held up section of the super drive enter the text "drutil eject" into Terminal (without the quotes).

4. Execute the command in Terminal by pressing enter.

5. Listen for the superdrive reacting to the command. If you hear it, try entering a disc. If you don't hear it and/or a disc still won't insert, repeat steps 3-5.

Hope this helps!

I've done the eject command in terminal many times. It just brings the dvd in and will eject it the next time. But the dvd still won't load on its own. I haven't tried the broken cd thing yet, is that what I need to do?

I pushed the disc in a little bit too hard while repeating the eject command in Terminal, and then heard a snap. I'm going to write this off as a loss and be happy that everything else works. If I need to open the machine up for some reason in the future I can put in a new drive I suppose. Thankfully, reliance on optical media is very limited nowadays and I have an external drive. The last few times I put a disc into the drive it required significantly more force than before, so maybe it was already kaput.

Try this for a semi-unresponsive superdrive!

My external superdrive wouldn't take a disc and then would reject it after a few seconds. It would show under "About This Mac" but not the Finder. It also would make a little noise when attached to the USB port.

I entered the "drutil eject" command in the terminal fifty times without a disc, and then with the disc pushed in at various intervals but then I tried holding the drive upside down and typed the command and it reset itself somehow and now works perfect! So don't just use that command with the drive sitting in it's normal position. I carry the SuperDrive around in the laptop bag with me everyday and I think something just got out of place slightly.

I also have to hold my older MacBook with built in SuperDrive vertically for the disc to eject!

I have an iMac 21 inch OS El Capitan, External Super Drive. I tried all of the previous comments. CMD F12, About this MAC, reset PRAM/AVRAM, drutil eject; Restart and / or Shutdown after each, finally (and I think that this was in a comment) I disconnected my SuperDrive from my USB HUB, and VIOLA! it is now working and I can load my 2016 TurnboTax.