Slot Load DVD-ROM drive won't accept discs!

Question

Slot Load DVD-ROM drive won't accept discs!

I have an iMac 450 with a DVD-ROM drive. I can no longer insert discs into this drive because there are some little white plastic bars in the way. It looks to me like the drive is stuck in the "loaded" position although there is no disc in the drive. I have removed it from the machine and verified that there is definitely not a CD or DVD in place. Is there a way to manually move these bars out of the way? The drive does not appear to do anything when you restart with the mouse button down or if you attempt a manual eject. Is my drive dead or is there a fix?

iMac 400, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 2, 2006 9:00 PM

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Answer 1

Prab

Level 1

25 points

May 5, 2006 9:30 PM in response to Larry Jorgenson

If you are comfortable opening up your mac you could try to open it and make sure that all connections are fine. Other than that i am clueless but since manual eject wont even work i wouldnt have much hope. :/

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Answer 2

May 9, 2006 4:55 AM in response to Larry Jorgenson

Simly act as if a cd has stucked in drive. With a paper clip, gently push the manual eject button on the right side of the drive.
If still does not work, with a thin screwdriver, gently pull that white plastic bars to the edge sides of the driver. Do not force much cause that plastics are not so strong.

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Answer 3

May 15, 2006 7:54 PM in response to Taner Sezer

Finally got around to cracking it open once again. I finally applied some generous sideways pressure to one of the white tabs and after a snap came a gentle whir like the sound of a nice eject. I bravely inserted a DVD and lo and behold it sucked in and mounted no-problem-o. Therefore, consider this solved.

By the way, I picked up this iMac on eBay with the caveat that the hard drive and DVD drive were faulty. Turns out neither was the case. The hard drive just needed to be reformatted which was of course difficult without being able to boot from a CD or DVD. I did well on this one!

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Answer 4

Prab

Level 1

25 points

May 17, 2006 11:23 AM in response to Larry Jorgenson

Good to hear you got your machine up and running again! Hope it doesnt give you anymore trouble in the future 😉

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Answer 5

Jun 18, 2006 10:22 PM in response to Larry Jorgenson

I have the same problem from time to time with my Graphite slot loading DVD player. The only thing that helps seems to be to place a small 9" fan about a few inches behind to pull the hot air away from the computer to help cool things down a bit. It's the only way that I can play more than one DVD movie after another without it suffering heat related issues like REFUSING to accept either another DVD or a CD. I suspect the problem may be because the hard drive is on the bottom of the computer and our DVD player is right above it where all the heat goes when it rises. Remember, heat goes straight UP not down and when you add that to an already HOT DVD player ........

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