DVD stuck in old slot loading internal superdrive on mac mini which won't boot

Question

Level 1

6 points

DVD stuck in old slot loading internal superdrive on mac mini which won't boot

I have an old core duo Snow Leopard mini upgraded to core 2 duo with a firmware upgrade. It has an internal superdrive. Until recently I hadn't used this mac for several years. I managed to boot it to the home screen but after that it froze, except for mouse cursor movement, and I could only get the spinning beachball. No programmes were accessible. Safe mode made no difference. Attempts to launch AHT were unsuccessful too.

I decided to try using an old Snow Leopard install disk to run hardware checks. It started the boot into the install disk to run disk utility but after language selection it froze in the same way with the spinning beachball.

(I've got a firewire cable and another mac mini so I have wondered if target mode might help?) (I also have a usb dvd drive and could try an old Tiger or Leopard disk boot for example but I've no idea what this might do)

I'll probably give up on the mini but my Snow Leopard disk is now stuck in the superdrive and I find it useful. I have no access to the mini so can't use any software solutions. Is there a physical way of getting the disk out? For example pushing something into the slot? I'm OK to take it apart if need be.

Thanks

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Upgraded to 2,1 with Core2Duo chip

Posted on Sep 28, 2016 10:51 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Sago48 Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 28, 2016 11:44 PM in response to Sago48

Please ignore. I've got the disk out using the eject key on boot!!

Reply

Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 29, 2016 6:35 AM in response to Sago48

Try holding mouse button down when powering on.

Trying Target mode or other drives/OSes shoo;don't hutu anything, but may not work is all.

Reply

Answer 3

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,058 points

Sep 29, 2016 3:55 PM in response to BDAqua

Another way is to see if Disk Utility can locate the

Mac's optical drive and the media within it, & click

the Eject button inside the Utility. Works for media

and also works to 'eject' a mounted drive.

Or, there's the other trick; be sure the drive slot is

facing down and try (either powered or not) to

get the optical media to fall out. Has been said to

work for portable macs with slot-load superdrive.

Good thing for the original thread author, they found

their keyboard had an eject button. Some don't! 😉

Reply

Answer 4

Sago48 Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 29, 2016 11:41 PM in response to K Shaffer

Thanks all. See above I managed to extract it once I realised there was enough 'boot' responsiveness to hold down the eject key. Without the Snow Leopard dvd in the slot it now boots to my home screen and I've managed to run disk utility and the disk is OK. But after that it's the beachball again and now it goes beachball immediately.

It does boot into safe mode - with the same result. With Snow Leopard in an external usb dvd drive it doesn't respond to the C key. I'll try the others keys - boot manager, recovery etc without much hope this morning.

I suspect a hardware fault.

Reply