Optical Drive Constantly Looping Eject Function

Well, my optical drive is constantly looping the eject function. I am not sure what the cause of this is, but it is the result of a long time trying to get a stuck DVD out. Between the time I put the disk in and when I wanted to take it out (a few weeks) I was bumped into during airport security by a TSA representative and dropped my laptop (ouch...), so there's a good chance the drop had something to do with it. At any rate, I tried everything I could find online to no avail for getting the stuck dvd out. This morning I went through all the tricks again and it started looping its attempt to get the DVD out. Well, I decided to open up my MacBook Pro and manually open the optical drive to get my DVD out. So, I took it apart, got it out and all that jazz. I put it back together and booted up my laptop just fine. It's all working great except my optical drive is STILL looping its attempt to eject a dvd even though there's nothing in there. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that my drive is shot, so I'm probably going to find a USB drive. However, I would really like to find a way to disable my optical drive so that I'm not constantly hearing and feeling the hardware trying to push out a CD. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Just remove the drive from the machine.

Similar Messages

  • Optical drive constantly making ejecting sounds when drive is empty

    the disc drive on my iMac randomly tries to eject a disc for a minute or more at a time when the drive is empty....any ideas why this is??

    Hmmm, I think I'd try this...
    One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...
    PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
    Reboot, test again.
    If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts (Users & Groups in later OSX versions)>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed. (Thinking maybe iTunes helper here).
    Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
    Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
    /private/var/run/StartupItems
    /Library/StartupItems
    /System/Library/StartupItems
    /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
    /Library/LaunchDaemons

  • Optical drive will not eject

    My Satellite A205-S5814 optical drive will not eject when I press the eject button.
    Before this problem started, the drive would eject, but sometimes a blank screen would immediately appear after the tray ejected and then the computer would restart itself and give me the option of restarting in safe mode.
    Please let me know what may be wrong.
    Thanks.

    Your machine is booting into a Windows partition.
    Apple does not support Windows. They do provide "Boot camp" which allows a knowledgeable person to install XP in a drive partition on a Mac.
    However "boot camp" still in "beta" status and some of the keyboard mapping is not the same as a Windows PC, because it's a Mac, not a PC.
    Mac's come with Mac OS X standard, not Windows. The copy of Windows you got on the machine was likely put there for demonstration purposes, not for sale. If you know how to hack Windows, I'm sure you could bypass the admin password, that's a "store trick" to sell a product with a illegal copy of Windows.
    All Mac's will open the c.d. tray if you reboot holding the mouse button down with a wired keyboard.
    You can also reboot again holding "option key" to select a drive partition to boot from, there should be a Mac OS X and a Windows partition, however it's possible the Mac OS X partition was erased.
    You can stick the Mac OS X installer disk in the c.d. tray, close it and reboot holding "c". It will boot off the disk. There you can select Disk Utility from the Installer menu and Erase w/Zero the internal hard drive. When finished Quit and install Mac OS X Tiger. Your "store copy" of Windows will be gone of course.
    If your unfamiliar with Mac's, Mac OS X, "Boot Camp" with Windows, I suggest you have someone help you. Your in very deep too early in your learning curve.
    You'll really need to learn Mac OS X first, then you can play around with "Boot-Camp" and a legal copy of XP in a drive partition.
    With Mac OS X your machine will be very safe from internet threats, but when your in "Boot Camp" under XP, your just like any Windows PC, completely vulnerable.

  • Optical drive won't eject and can't power off from Apple menu!

    I have a Quicksilver that has almost always acted great but ever since I physically moved the machine to another room I've been having intermittent problems. Here's a quick summary:
    -Overall more sluggish performance
    -Occasionally the optical drive won't eject and I have to restart the whole machine. (I did replace the drive a couple years ago but have never had any problems until now).
    -I can no longer shut down/restart from the apple menu, i have to push the power button in.
    I used to get device removal error messages at inappropriate times but that seems to have stopped since I reseated my USB 2.0 card. Here's a list of the other remedies I have tried:
    -Repair permissions
    -Make sure all cards/RAM seated properly
    -Replaced PRAM battery (year was displaying 1970)
    -Ran DiskWarrior
    -Re-imaged entire boot drive
    I can't remember if I've tried zapping the PRAM because this problem has been going on for about five months. None of this was an issue before I carted the machine into another room so hopefully I haven't dislodged anything. Also, I notice a lot of static build-up in the room despite the hardwood flooring. Perhaps that could be an issue and if so, any suggestions?
    I was dreading that it could be my logic board, any advice?
    thanks,
    Jesse

    Well....it may be fine for you to accept an inferior item, not I. I paid for a unit that was supposed to be fully operational and work as designed. I will not accept having to reboot every time I want to put a CD or DVD into my computer! That's like having to restart your car so the headlights work. Even if one doesn't drive at night, you would still expect the headlights to work ANYTIME you want them without the extra steps. I know "where" the issue is and I know "why" the issue is BUT unfortunately, there is not a fix I can find. Between uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and applications and etc. I give up. They will replace my unit according to Lenovo, with a brand new laptop. Should this one have the same issue, I will be disputing my CC charge, and sending the unit back to them for a full and complete refund. I wish I had a copy of WIn8 or Win7 without Lenovo's proprietary software embedded. I bet the unit would work as designed then, but to have them rewrite or add software with hooks directly into the core system is a recipe for disaster. I encourage you to do something about yours also. The more people that ALLOW this "type" manufactured fleecing, the more it will occur.
    I guess I will find out just how well this replacement process works.

  • HP Envy 15 Optical Drive Won't Eject Disc

    I tried to burn a DVD and loaded a DVD-R into the optical drive. Burned the disc, now the disc won't eject. I try restarting the computer and going through Computer to eject, and nothing. It sounds like it tries to eject, fails, takes back in the disc and runs it.  This is definitely a problem, considering I'm a filmmaker and need to produce this DVD soon.
    Please tell me I don't have to wait for an HP tech to take my computer for a week and a half to fix my brand freaking new notebook that I dished out over a thousand dollars for. This kind of thing is infuriating. And it seems others share this problem. So I wonder why it wasn't fixed.
    Thank you in advance for all the help. 

    Hi,
    Please provide us the complete model of your system along with the operating system, so that we can assist you in a better way.
    How to locate model number:
    Notebook:
    http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&​lc=en&docname=c00033108
    Regards,
    =======================
    I am an HP employee.
    If my suggestion was helpful, you can thank me by clicking on the "Kudos" button!
    If my answer solved your problem, please feel free let the community know by clicking the "Accept as Solution" button!!

  • Empty optical drive ejects randomly (every 2-15 mins)

    I'm having a problem with my recently purchased Studio 1535 laptop....
    Specs:
    Vista Home Premium (SP 1) (32-bit)
    Intel Core2Duo T5750 (2GHz)
    4Gb RAM
    The problem is that every now and then I hear the optical drive make an eject sound, even though there is no disc in it. It doesn't seem to happen when a disc is inside ...I can play CD albums without them ejecting mid play.
    I don't think the behaviour is a serious problem (the noise that the drive makes sounds more or less like a normal eject mechanism). However, it's quite annoying and disconcerting, and I don't think it's 'normal' because we have another Studio 1535 (exactly the same specs) that doesn't behave like this.
    If anyone can help me rectify this behaviour I'd be extremely thankful!
    Thanks,
    Marc
    Message Edited by RelicDelic on 09-06-2008 11:43 AM

    first try upgrading the firmware on the drive. this is different than the drivers or the bios version. if that does not work, try this and let me know... i have heard of this on some older laptops... it is worth a shot in the dark. try both separately so we know what worked....
    --Restore Setup Defaults
    Follow the appropriate steps below for your system:
    1. Restart your computer.
    2. At the first text on the screen or immediately after the Dell logo appears,
    press the <F2> key every three seconds until the message Entering Setup appears.
    3. When the System Setup screen appears, press <Alt> + <F> keys at the same
    time to resotre the defaults. (DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, IF YOU HAVE A CUSTOMIZED BIOS, MAY HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT AGIAN - not a big deal)
    4. Press the <Esc> key.
    5. Press the <Enter> key to save changes and exit.
    Your computer restarts.
    --check if the drive ejects in bios.
    To enter into Bios please perform the following.
    Restart the system.
    Keep tapping the F2 as soon as you see the initial dell logo key to Enters
    System Setup menu (i.e. the bios screen)
    2.Press the eject button on the front of the CD drive.
    3. Restart and try it out.

  • Optical drive won't open

    How can I manually open the optical drive on my Mac Pro? There is no paperclip hole that I can see. Thanks in advance.
    (I searched for this and found nothing. It's hard to believe it hasn't been asked.)

    Hmm, that's interesting. I'll have to try the "...eject" next time I have a burn session freeze on me. (You know, where it's supposed to be burning a DVD, but the burning application sits there and churns with the beach ball, but it's not really doing anything, and it never comes out of it.) Had to resort to rebooting in the past. Happens a few times per year, which isn't much considering how many I burn, but it's annoying when it happens.
    I was searching for this stuff because I used to use option-F12 (Logitech keyboard) to open the second drive, but it stopped working, possibly because of the latest Logitech software update I installed. I have the previous Logitech update if I need to revert, but the new version has some other nice features, so this workaround isn't bad. I always (literally, always) have a terminal window open anyway, so I just did a few quick aliases for my drive open/close/eject functions. I'd still rather have a quick single key-combo, but this isn't bad.
    It's tempting to write a little script-application that would figure out if it was open or closed and then do the opposite, but looks like the only drutil bit that might tell me that information is the "poll" option, and that keeps polling, so it doesn't self-terminate, so things get messy from a coding standpoint. It's probably not worth that much work to me.
    Thanks for the tip!

  • Optical Drive has stopped working since upgrading to ATI 9800

    Due to hardware failure of my ATI Radeon 9600 I decided to upgrade to the 9800, which requires (in G5's) a four pin split power supply to be connected to the optical drive.
    I have turned my computer on and successfully receive signal out to my monitors, but thus discovered I can't eject the disk tray!
    I opened up the computer again and all the connection seem fine.....
    Is anyone familiar with installing the 9800?
    G5 (duel 2.0 Ghz)   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   1GB RAM

    Thanks for both your responses.
    I am going to restore the system with the other video card and try to get things back to normal, but I did a few more troubleshoots.
    The optical drive seems to be functioning. I started up my computer with the side panel opened and I moved the drive a few inches out in order to press the manual eject button. I was able to open the drive bay and close it by pressing the eject button on my keyboard. (That is the first time the keyboard worked.)
    I closed the drive bay with an installer CD in it but the CD wouldn't read. I restarted holding the C key down to try and boot off the CD drive- nothing. So I guess the drive isn't working....but yet it seems to be powered????
    Do you think this is really only a bad cable? When installing the new Video Card I had a very hard time detaching the 4 pin power supply from the optical drive. Could I have damaged something?
    It wouldn't surprise me if now my optical drive was broken. I have had to replace everything on my computer since it reached three years old.
    G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9) 1GB RAM

  • Computer Not Recognizing Optical Drives

    I put a LG DVD drive in the bottom slot yesterday and now my Mac's not seeing either optical drive. The eject button says "No drives" and there's nothing under ATA under system profiler. Both drives have power and can eject manually. If I remove the SATA cable from the LG, there's no change.
    Changed both jumpers to cable select, and tried other combinations. Did an SMC reset. Put the Mac in target disk mode and ran disk utility from my iBook. I really can't think of anything else and it's driving me crazy. Does anyone have any other ideas?

    Okay, I fixed the problem. Through some inane, non-Apple-like, non-intuitive nonsensical procedure.
    The problem initially was that my ribbon cable had a tiny tear in it. This was caused by one of the three aluminum posts that guide the CD chassis into the Mac Pro case. Really, really bad design, because the cable is flimsy and it's easy to snag it on one of the posts because you can't see anything when you are sliding the chassis back in, it blocks your view. So I had to go to a store on the other side of town for a new cable, luckily a sturdy one is only $10.
    So I had to put the new cable in, which is behind the fan. But another design flaw with the Mac Pro, and some of you already know this, is that the front fan assembly is a monstrous pain to get out. Once you work that thing out, all the while thinking, "I know I'm going to break this", you can't help but marvel at how great the G5 fan assembly was, you could pull it out just to vacuum if you wanted.
    So after I put the new cable in, I pretty much ran into every problem anyone with a Mac Pro has had in putting in a second drive.
    The first one was the Superdrive showed up in the eject menu, but the text was garbled as if the system was using some unknown font. Like in the old days when you had to disable a fractional font because it was taking over your internet browser. I tried to put in a Leopard DVD, and it asked me what I wanted to do with the blank DVD. It did the same thing with a manufactured music CD.
    So I tried to flash the drive with the NEC version on the web, but I was told by the Terminal that permission was denied even though I was logged into as the root user. So I thought I'd play the shell game with jumper settings again to no avail. Then I thought, what about Windows, I'll boot into that. But it saw neither drive.
    When I booted back to Leopard, the eject button in the menu showed no drives again. But Superdrive was listed in Apple Profile. So I exhausted any way I could think of getting the Superdrive to work.
    So I unhooked the master IDE and hooked it to the LG. It popped up in both the eject menu and Apple Profile. So I took the chassis out and swapped the drives. No sooner had I started back up again, then both trays ejected. Only the superdrive was listed under eject in the menu, and it wouldn't shut the tray. LG wasn't listed at all. When I pushed either tray in, they both opened.
    I'd already changed jumper settings maybe 20 times in the last few days (they both were on cable select), but I did it one more time, and now everything is completely fine. I set the LG as master and the superdrive as slave.
    However, they won't be allowing Macs in the mental institution I will surely be going to now.

  • Keep the optical drive spinning

    I want to keep the optical drive constantly spinning. I am running music for a dance recital, and all their music is on CDs and I would prefer not to rip it in. My problem is that for the rehearsals, every time they rehearse a new song, I have to wait minimum 10 seconds for the drive to spin up and load the song. Is there any way I can keep the drive spinning until im done with it? Or a way to temporarily load the CD into RAM?

    You can simply put the contents of the CD into iTunes; create a RAM disk - iRamDisk 3.2.0 - and copy the CD to the RAM disk provided you have sufficient RAM installed; copy the CDs onto your hard drive. There is nothing I'm aware of that prevents the optical drive from spinning down when idle.

  • Jammed CD in optical drive

    I have a cd jammed in my optical drive and cannot eject it. I can hear the drive trying to move the cd which was not seated correctly when the drive closed. Any one have a low tech way of getting into the drive to get the cd out? I sure could use the help.
    thanks
    Brian M

    Hi maddogstormy :
    Pull the metal door down on the drive and locate a small pinhole on the bezel of the drive. Then slowly insert a paperclip into it and the drive should open.
    -Robert

  • New Mac minis' optical drives

    Hello, today I've read in German Macintosh magazine, that the new Mac minis (released last month) would include a different optical drive (at least the model with a dvd burner inside) and that this drive would be much louder when reading dvds than the drive in the previous model.
    I am really concerned about this issue, because I am looking forward into buying a Mac mini for my living room to hook it up to my TV.
    So my question is: Does somebody know about the smaller mac mini model without dvd buring capabilities? Is it more silent or as loud as the model with dvd burner? Is it more silent or louder than the previous model without dvd burner?

    Sound from optical drives is often a function of the quality of media. I've stated what you can do to avoid having low quality media in this thread:
    http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5262710#5262710
    That said, if you find the drive you get is too noisy, you can always put the Mini behind the TV. Just be sure wherever it is put it has enough air circulation so it doesn't overheat. You can get DVI cables as long as 50 feet if you shop around.

  • Mac mini optical drive ejecting discs

    Hello, All
    I'm using a Mac mini late 2006 model (1.83GHz Intel Core Duo, 1GB RAM, Snow Leopard 10.6.1) and a few days ago the machine started ejecting optical discs without reading/mounting them. Once a disc is inserted, the machine whirs a but and then ejects the disc.
    The problem affects all discs - blank CD, DVD, published CD and DVD.
    Can anyone offer any help as to why? I've not had any problems with the optical drive before and have used it reasonably regularly because prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard and plugging in an external hard drive to use Time Machine, I was using Back Up - which obviously requires me to use the optical drive.
    I must say I'm a bit confused as to why. The machine has not been dropped or even moved since the drive has gone from functioning to not working. I keep my software up to date. I have heard that Snow Leopard seems to be causing the odd strange issue but not come across this one. The drive has functioned properly since the SL install a month or so ago.
    Any help or advice is really welcome.
    One last thing (sorry!), and this is probably completely unrelated but I thought I'd mention it so that all info is out there. A couple of weeks ago (also post-SL install) my wireless Mighty Mouse stopped functioning properly. It wasn't the batteries or dirt, etc. I could move the pointer around the screen but just not click on anything. I thought at first that the Finder had crashed but upon using a replacement mouse, it became apparent what the problem was. I tried re-booting, switching the mouse off and on, the usual stuff. Few days later, I tried the Mighty Mouse again and it worked fine.
    Thanks in advance, all.
    Matt

    Hi there
    Apologies for the delay in coming back here, been kind of busy.
    I tried the canned air solution and unfortunately, it didn't work. However, having spoken to a number of people about this since my posting and the help posted to this forum, using the canned air generally comes highly recommended because it usually does solve such problems.
    So, I've also looked for a cleaning disc and am still searching (to be fair, I've not yet looked very hard) but the problem seems to be that most stores sell cleaning discs designed for drives with a CD tray, rather than the slot loading mini approach (which also has fabric to held clean the disc on its way in, rather negating the benefit of using any fluid or gel on the disc).
    I'm going to keep looking and will post back here to let you know if I have any luck or not. Do try the canned air solution - it may work, also please post to let us know if you solve it or not. I fear that there's a proper problem with the drive...
    Good luck and thanks, All. Will post again.
    Regards,
    Matt

  • The optical drive on my Macbook white keeps ejecting DVD's?

    So am trying to upgrade to snow leopard on my older intel based macbook white, but the disc just ejects, first I thought it was a problem with the disc, but I tried with another DVD and did the same thing. CD's seem to work fine.
    Tried the disc utility repair and safe mode and all that but no joy. So I also have a newer aluminium macbook which works great, so I was wondering if it was at all possible to use the optical drive on my newer macbook to install the disc on my older macbook using the remote disc facility? I know its for the Air but is there a way to make it work for my non air macbook. I wanna see if this is possible before I go to the expense of getting an external DVD drive or even getting it fixed by apple which im sure is gunna costa an arm and a leg!
    Or is there something else I can try to get my dvd section of the optical drive working again?
    Many thanks
    Hannah

    If I were you, I'd uninstall Power Manager entirely. I don't particularly like any of Lenovo's software. Each and every one has caused me problems so I've gotten rid of them all.

  • Using osx snow leopard with boot camp, optical drive keeps ejecting windows 7 disc

    Upgraded my late 2008 macbook pro from leopard to snow leopard.  Added the max 4GB of RAM and replaced the working 250GB hard drive with a new 1TB hard drive.  Rebooted with time machine from external hard drive.  Now tried setting up Bootcamp to add a Windows 7 partition, but the optical drive keeps ejecting the Windows 7 disc after it spins for a few moments.  The optical drive will read other discs, just not the Windows 7 disc.  How do I fix this problem?

    you need to install the new bootcamp drivers from windows. boot into windows, insert the snow leopard DVD, open it and follow the instructions.

Maybe you are looking for