CD Drive refuses to eject...

Hello,
My slot loader refuses to eject...when I eject a CD you can hear the drive trying to eject but it cannot - and then after the cd does not mount again. I have to either push a paper clip thru the whole a couple of times for it to come out(sometimes it doesn't work) or I have to try to stick another CD into the drive to take the original one out.
It was horrible, its been happening for a long time - I just reformatted my HD today and Mac os x installer rquired other cd's to be inserted - when the installer tried to eject, the cd wouldn't - thank god i have an external cd/cd-rw drive!
Please help.
Sean

Hello,
Sounds to me like your drive is out of alignment with the slot on your computer.
It probably needs a slight adjustment in it's positioning inside the computer to properly line-up with the slot that the disk comes out of.
I would try opening the computer, and re-seating the CD-ROM drive so that it lines-up better.
If that doesn't work, then try placing a plastic shim under it, and fix the shim in-place with some vinyl or electrical tape. Don't use anything metal that could short something if it later fell-out. Stick with shim material that is not electrically conductive.
This should fix your problem. The trick will just be getting the drive to sit properly and line-up with the slot you have on the front of the computer.
If you don't feel up to doing this, you could take it to a service center. But, since your machine is out of warranty (being an older G3 iMac), you'll have to pay for the service.
If you want to do it yourself, here are some guides that will show you how to dismantle your computer and get into the area where the CD-ROM drive is located:
http://www.nelsonbc.ca/mactechsupprt_html/imac_hard_drive_replace/imac_replace_harddrive.html
http://www.fastmac.com/downloaddata/imacslcpuinstall.pdf
While those articles are not specifically targeted at the CD-ROM drive, they will help you dismantle the computer and show you clearly how to get to that area. Just don't go further into the process than you need to (stop at adjusting the CD-ROM drive).
I hope this helps.

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m021478 wrote:
One of my external hard drives simply refuses to eject/un-mount, and I've done everything I can think of to terminate any processes and/or applications that may be using the drive and preventing it from being ejected properly, but I haven't had any success...
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User's Guide: page-95
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Message was edited by: Hoffphil

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