iMac optical eject problem

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gzt

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#109179 14-Sep-2012 13:09

From time to time my iMac refuses to eject a dvd on request. After some classic mechanical servo confusion noise it will start playing the dvd again instead of ejecting it.

Usually it will give the dvd back to me after a while. This time it may be planning to keep it.

Human intervention is required. I have opened the case before. No problem with that procedure (thanks jofizz!).

From there any tips on manually ejecting the dvd from the drive?

Since I'm going in anyway - any tips on effecting a potential temporary repair to the eject sequence?

gehenna

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#686021 14-Sep-2012 13:51

When you boot your Mac from powered off (or reboot for that matter) click and hold the mouse button while it starts (or the trackpad button). This will eventually force eject the optical drive contents.

Following that you can reset the SMC controller to see if it fixes the issue long term.

josephhinvest

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#686023 14-Sep-2012 13:52

If you do need to remove the drive, it's not that hard to get a disk or foreign object out.
I would normally just remove the top part of the optical drive, usually four small Philips screws. You may have to remove mounting brackets etc first. Then you can just partially lift off the drive top cover and pop the disk off the spindle.
Take care not to move and gears and mechanisms of course.
Unfortunately I don't really have any suggestions as to how to prevent it happening again.

I guess you've tried the easy stuff... Rebooting holding down the mouse button, checked to see whether disk utility will eject the disk?

Cheers,
Joseph

gzt

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#686267 15-Sep-2012 00:10

I had tried eject on start but not the mouse method. No difference.

This evening tried start and du > unmount > eject (and SMC) but no difference.

I'll get to removing the disk from the drive manually.

Maybe it is a malformed spindle hole on this particular dvd. More likely a worn drive component and the end of drive life.

It is an older machine (core2 2ghz) so given the silly cost of replacement optical internal I may just go external for a while if it continues to misbehave after extracting this particular disk.

gzt

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#686842 16-Sep-2012 21:06

I got the dvd out this evening.

I removed the four small screws from the top of the drive cover. I levered the cover upwards slightly around the sides. It became obvious cover removal was restricted in part by (what I think was) a data cable pcb assembly screwed to the body of the drive.

Not a lot of room to work in there and it is packed in tightly. Instead of going further I decided to see if the drive was now happy to let the disc go without further work. Plugged in the machine and pressed the eject and I got the dvd back.

I replaced the screws and retested the insert and eject sequence. Works ok.

Inspecting the dvd there was a few icky bits on it. The asset label around the spindle hole had a few small air bubbles in it and was off centre. This might have been a contributor to a release problem.

I have put the machine back together and eject still working so far.

Thanks for your help!