Disc stuck in dead iMac

Hi, I have a slot-loading iMac DV 400 that died quite a while ago (lightning, ouch) and it had a disc in the CD drive at the time. I have a new 2 Ghz 17" G5 now, but I want to use that disc and since the iMac is pretty dead there are no commands or tricks I can use to get it without damaging the disc (i.e. tweezers). I'm about to take apart the iMac and remove the CD drive and see if I can get it out then. I'm using the guide from the "iMac Take Apart" site so you don't need to post any links to it, but I thought I'd put a post here incase my idea doesn't work. Well thats about it for now, thanks for reading my problem =)

Well I was able to get the CD drive out without much difficulty, however it seems to have an iMac dead grip on the disc as there is a metal bar preventing the disc from being taken out of the front. This makes sense since the disc was in the iMac normally when it got fried and it seems like that metal bar is there so that when the disc is spinning in the comp it doesn't come flying out and decapitate you. Anyway now I'll have to try taking apart the CD drive itself to get at the disc. Hopefully I can do it without damaging anything (and be able to put it back together afterwards). I'll post another update soon

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Mini disc stuck in my imac

How do I remove a mini disc that is stuck in my new intel imac? the eject button is useless. <Edited by Moderator>
Thanks
Steve

Hi Steve
You could turn it on it's side and hope that it falls out, but you'll probably have to take the iMac to your local Apple Service Provider or Apple Store and have them extract the disc from it.
Have a look at your Intel iMac User's Guide:
*Chapter 2 page 21 say's:* +It can write music, documents, and other files to standard-size CD-R,+
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and *Chapter 4 page 50 say's:* +Use only a _standard size_ disc.+
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Disc Stuck in Intel iMac... STILL After Trying Literally EVERYTHING!

It's been almost a month now and I still have a standard CD-R stuck in my disk drive. While my iMac is still useable, the disk drive cycles and taunts me every 4-5 seconds as it attempts to once again eject the disk. The battle has been fierce and I have literally tried EVERYTHING mentioned online up to the current day (5/16/2009). Here are couple key-points worth noting:
• When the computer boots up and I first log in, the disk actually shows up on the desktop as well as in iTunes. One quick tap on the eject button (or any other standard disk eject method) and the drama begins again as the disk drive comes to life and begins its relentless, endless cycle of ejection attempts.
• I have tried the plastic/laminated card method, the hold down the mouse-button and reboot method, the various key-combination methods, the terminal methods, the tipping the monitor methods, the trying to insert a second disk methods, the tweeze methods, the press the case together methods, the double-stick tape methods, and even the lay hands on it and pray method... ALL with no avail!
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Hey Jaber,
I've had the same issue with mine as well, and tried all the suggestions to no avail.
I think it's a Drive issue , because I've read several other post in reference to this.
I could not eject mine, even though I could see the icon, and click eject it, however, it would try to eject the CD but would not come out. The drive was running al the time in sleep mode. I finally got the CD out, but you are going to have to use some tools to do it and take it apart somewhat. This is at the point where you decide to find a replacement Drive and install it yourself, (some what skilled labor involved) or do what I did, which was to to pull the 4 screws off the bottom of the imac, slide the Bezel off slightly so you can now actually see the side of the drive. In my case, there was a small metal latch (to hold the CD in while it spins?) in the middle of the drive preventing the CD from ejecting. Once I took a small screwdriver and pressed this latch back, I was able to take a pair of tweezers and pull out my CD. At this point I closed everything up, and put a piece of scotch tape across the drive slot, (so no one would accidently stick another CD in) and purchased a $69 external F/W drive. My take was this..., it was more cost & time effective to purchase a external CD/DVD drive (plug & Play) as opposed to time and effort putting in a new drive in the iMac.
Hope this helps.

2 discs stuck in my imac ?

any idea's, my daughter put 2 discs in my mac os x,

Unless you can pry them out without causing damage, it's a trip to either the genius bar at your local Apple Store, a call in to your local Apple Service centre or send the Mac in to Apple for a chargeable repair
You could try lying your iMac face down (on something dust free and soft so as not to damage the screen etc: gravity might help get one of the discs into an ejectable position) then start the iMac and hold down the left click on your mouse. This should force eject a disc, but it might not cope with 2 discs jammed in there.
It could be worth a try.
I hope you get it sorted

Disc stuck

Hi,
A disc is stuck in my iMac DVD drive. It will spin and sound like its about to eject but the disc will not come out. My iMac will read and play the disc but I just can't fully eject it. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive
Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the left mouse button until the disc ejects.
Press the Eject button on your keyboard.
Click on the Eject button in the menubar.
Press COMMAND-E.
If none of the above work try this: Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:
/usr/bin/drutil eject
If this fails then try this:
Boot the computer into single-user mode. At the prompt enter the same command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt without quotes.

Disc stuck in DVD drive

Hi
I have a disc stuck in my drive. When I eject its stats to come out, sounds like it gets wedged, then goes back in again. Is this as serious as I fear and is there an easy way to get the disc out without resorting to striping out the drive.
Many Thanks
Adrian

Which "model" & "generation" G5 iMac do you have?
Need this info so that the knowledgeable users can provide you with the proper troubleshooting solution(s).
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301724-en How to identify your iMac
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh355.html Getting information about your computer
You can have this info displayed on the bottom of every post by going to 'My Settings' which is located in the column on the right under your name, and filling in the information asked for.
Thank you
In the meantime, see the following:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58566 iMac (Slot Loading): Troubleshooting CD/DVD Eject Failures
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106752 Macintosh: How to Eject a Disc When Other Options Do Not Work
Launch Disk Utility (Finder>Go>Utilities), select the ‘stuck disc’ in the volume list on the left & then either click the "Eject Button, Press Command+E or choose File>Eject Disk.
Also check out the following thread:
Yet Another CD Can't Eject - All posted methods tried
Another help source (if you haven't already done so).
Go to your OS Help Menu. In the search field type dvd
Click on all the troubleshooting topics & Support Articles that pertain to your issue.
You can also do the same in Disk Utility. Open same up.
At the bottom left of the window, click on the purple button w/the "?" in the middle.
This will bring up the Help Menu.

Australian CD Stuck in American iMac

An Australian CD of photographs is now stuck in my iMac. I tried to force eject it, and even though the iMac gave me the confirmation that the disc was effectively force ejected, the disc never popped out. How should I solve this problem?

How to Get a Jammed CD/DVD Out of an iMac Optical Drive:
Drag the CD icon to the Trash, reboot the Mac and hold down the mouse button, or the “Eject” button on your keyboard.
Launch Apple’s Disk Utility application, select the stuck CD and hit the “Eject” button.
Using the Terminal, enter the following command: drutil eject
If none of these solution works, there’s a good chance that there’s a hardware problem. If you still have difficulty ejecting the disc from your iMac, the cause may be one of the following issues:
UNEVEN EDGE OF THE CD
There are two levers on a slot-loading CD/DVD drive that help center a CD/DVD disc. Some CDs and DVDs have an uneven edge which can cause enough friction to prevent the disc from ejecting.
If this happens follow these steps:
Take a large paperclip and grasp it with one hand so that about three quarters of an inch, or 18 millimeters, extends beyond your fingers. Insert the paperclip into the CD/DVD slot about 1.5 inches, or 36 millimeters, from the left edge of the slot. See below.
CD/DVD Slot
With the other hand, drag the disc icon on the desktop to the Trash to force the computer to eject the disc. When you hear the disc attempt to eject, slide the paperclip to the left edge of the slot and then remove the paperclip. You should feel a little resistance from the spring loaded centering lever. See below.
Paperclip Inserted into the Slot
Once the disc has been successfully ejected, wipe the outside edge of the CD/DVD with your hands. Cleaning the edge of the disc in this way will reduce the likelihood of the disc becoming stuck again.
BOTTOM COVER MISALIGNED
If the bottom plastic cover is misaligned it will prevent a CD or DVD from ejecting properly. You can usually tell whether the bottom cover is misaligned because the slot is distorted. If the top of the CD/DVD slot appears to be bowed downward then the bottom cover is probably misaligned. Contact your local Authorized Service Provider to correct the misaligned plastic cover.

Is it possible to retrieve a CD which is physically stuck in an iMac without dismantling the iMac?

Is it possible to retrieve a CD which is physically stuck in an iMac without dismantling the iMac?

Hello there,
The only way i can think is to press the button to eject, then normally what i do is push a thin card just over the top of the disc, and try get it out by pushing slightly down on the card to pull the disc out, otherwise you can try to hang the imac upside down where the disc will fall out, and give it a few shakes downwards to where the disc might slide out etc.
Here is other sources to fixes of stuck discs below.
http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-how-to-force-eject-a-stuck-dis c--mac-31662
A persons reply to his fix with imac "Wuce Brillis • 2 years ago A while ago i got a physically stuck disc in my iMac, after all the above methods it was still stuck. Eventually, after a lot of searching on the web, I got it out fairly easy with a business card which I slid in the tray. Maybe this will help someone"
the last thing you can do is end up opening up the imac and void warrenty, if you have apple care, use that and ask at a local apple store to see if they can get the disc out etc.

How to get data from hard drive in dead iMac?

I have an old slot-loading iMac (350Mhz G3 blueberry) that just died, probably a dead power supply or something. Won't turn on at all. I don't care about restoring it, I just want to take the hard drive out and grab data from it. I've found instructions for removing the HD ... but any tips on the best/cheapest way to hook it up to get data from it? It's EIDE I believe from what I've read so far. Thanks for any help.

Hey Richard.....Thanks for the reply to my question about my wife's dead iMac.....
Her iMac had been acting up lately, mostly to do with her Outlook Express freezing up in OS9. I dunno if OS9 was freezing or if the application was failing. Regardless, I would have to quit OS9, restart Outlook which at the same time restarted OS9. All would be fine for a while, a day or two and then the scene would repeat itself. But I think that issue is separate from the iMac being "dead". Often we have power outages in the area, more than we should. I had the iMac plugged into a battery backup, some APS product I think it is. I believe it is only good for less than an hour as we have other devices drawing on it too. Most of our power outages are of short duration, just enough to be aggravating, sometimes having to reset clocks, etc...And a couple times, I would have to reset the time and date on the iMac so this told me that the PRAM battery was below minimum voltage. But the iMac would ALWAYS restart, even with the low battery. But the most recent outage, about one hour duration, did in the iMac, somehow or other. I do believe the battery backup basically fully discharged. So I removed the battery, could not find a new battery locally so I drove to the big city and paid the local Apple service dealer a visit. I got ripped big time price wise, embarrassed to say. So I get home, put the battery in the holder, depressed the CMU reset, the powerbutton illuminated as did a green LED by the memory modules for less than three seconds and then quit. I also heard the HD trying to spin up and a high voltage THUMP which I assume is the CRT trying to ignite. If I unplugged the iMac, removed the battery, plug in the power again and hit the power button, the iMac would repeat the same short on period and then quit. So it did not seem to make any difference if there was a battery in place. I read somewhere to pull the battery, pull the AC cord, hold down the power button to dump any current (?) and let the unit sit for 24hrs. After that length of time, I was supposed to replace the battery, depress the CMU reset, wait ten seconds and then feed it AC. Well, when I pressed the power button, I heard life for maybe five seconds, maybe a second longer, then a beep and then it shut down. I pulled the AC cord, pulled the battery, re-inserted the battery, depressed the CMU reset, waited a few seconds, plugged in the AC cord, depressed the power button and I am back at the under three seconds of "power-up" and then nothing, dead, no beep, nothing. I think maybe it is a waste of time trying to mess with this unit, looking for a newer iMac on eBay, the snowball series with the 17" LCD, might be time better spent. Hate throwing stuff away, that's why I am up to my ears in junk, maybe u know that scenario. The wife likes my 19" ACER LCD screen, hooked up to this old dual 800mhz, though she dislikes the noise and the tower. But we both agree the large LCD screen is much easier on our aging eyes than the old iMac CRT. Anyway, I appreciate your help, always GREAT to correspond with an Apple fan.....John Bauer

I wish to remove my hard drive from a dead iMac, and have it place into an external case. Any good sources for the person to do the work?

I have a dead iMac (mother board), intel duo.I wish to remove the hard drive and made into an external hard drive (hopefully being able to read the contents). Any recommendations as to whom I should go to to do the work?

AASP Locator

I had a 'dead' iMac repaired and it needed a new HDD & graphics card, the repairer installed OSX 10.6.8 and i now need to install other software but I am being asked for 'User' password so I may do this, I've no idea what this will be. Help please.

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<Personal Information Edited by Host>

On looking at the secure.log on the iMac with OSX10.6.8, I see these entries at each attempt to scp into the iMac:
Dec 29 11:06:20 molika sshd[7248]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Failed to determine Kerberos principal name.
Dec 29 11:06:26 molika sshd[7246]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam for prowat from 137.110.243.132 port 35571 ssh2
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Dec 29 11:06:26 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 attributes 0x20
Dec 29 11:06:27 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 dead
Dec 29 11:06:27 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Killing auth hosts
Dec 29 11:06:27 molika com.apple.SecurityServer[26]: Session 0x236a14 destroyed
I don't know what to make of this.
Peter R

Help! How can I take out the mini-disc stuck in mac?

Help! How can I take out the mini-disc stuck in mac?
I insert it into the mac, but the OS cannot load the disc and the disc cannot be ejected even i pressed the "eject" button.

This happened to a family members macbookpro. A mini-cd inserted, couldn't be mounted or ejected by the drive.
I cut a rectangle from a cereal box about two inches wide and 6 inches long. Abour an inch and half from one end in the middle I cut a notch and bent it down a little.
I................I
I................I
I....I__I....I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I................I
I________I
I then inserted it slowly into the drive notch down and slowly pulled out. I did this few times and caught the mimi-cd and removed it. The drive has worked flawlessly for several years
A few days after this happened I was in BestBuy and an Apple rep was there displaying new Apple products. I asked him about it and he said they have a tool that ***** it out.

Using a hair-dryer to resurrect a dead iMac CTR!

I visit this forum often enough to see how many people are finding it hard to get their old (but perfectly usable) iMac CTR to work again.
Well, after putting in a new battery, my good old iMac G3 400 SE slot loader was still not booting. I knew everything worked. I turned it off for a day, and then it wouldn't boot up again. All I got was a green flicker as I tried to power on.
Well, low and behold, I used a hair-dryer to warm up the inside of the system, and it booted up fine!
Hopefully this might work for some others with presumable dead iMac G3s. But the question is why??? If I put the system to sleep I get the same "playing dead" iMac and have to wake it up again with the hair dryer. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your input. Yes I did check a number of things, including all connectors fitting ok, but maybe I missed something. I did try swapping out even the logic boards and hard drives, to no avail. My guess it is something with the monitor itself, since the other components work fine, and only when the monitor is heated enough will it start.
I have no problems with the computer otherwise, but I hate to waste electricity - it just can't sleep or it will play dead. Thanks again.
I hope this might help others who might have the same problem thinking it is something wrong with the computer, when it is really the monitor. Go get those hair dryers revved!

I have just gotten the new imac for christmas. where do i insert a disc into my new iMac?

i am unsure on how to insert a disc into the new imac.

You need to purchase an external, third party FireWire/Thunderbolt or USB 2.0/3.0 optical drive or
You can purchase a companion drive direct from Apple for $79.
Third party drives will be cheaper.

My disc drive on my imac does not appear to be working. It takes the disc in but then spits it out without reading it. I have thought about purchasing an external disc drive, can someone advise me please?

My disc drive on my imac does not appear to be working. It takes the disc in but then spits it out without reading it. I have thought about purchasing an external disc drive, can someone advise me please?

Try the following:
In Finder, select the problematic volume and then press command-I.
Expand the Sharing & permissions section if it's collapsed.
If the section is locked, then unlock it by pressing the padlock button and then authenticating as directed.
Tick/check Ignore ownership on this volume.

Disc stuck in dead iMac

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