Unix command to disable DVD drive?

My DVD drive on my 20" intel imac is failing to eject the disk. It won't come out. I have done everything like restarting with the mouse held down etc etc. I am going to buy a cheap external DVD writer as a solution. The drive however is making a noise every 10 secs in what I guess is in an attempt to read the disk or eject it? What ever the noise is I want it to stop! Is there a command I can type in the terminal to kill or disable the drive so it quits trying to do what it is doing?
Thanks in advance.
Martin.

Ask at the Unix forum under OS X Technologies. BTW, this Terminal command should eject the disc:
*drutil eject -drive internal*

Similar Messages

  • UNIX Commands to disable Expose and Dashboard

    Teacher looking to block/disable Expose and Dashboard on iMac 2.2 gHz running 10.6.1
    I use ARD 3.2 and want to use a UNIX command to disable features on the students computers. If you know other Commands, maintenance scripts, permissions, etc..those would be helpful as well.
    Thanks for your time and help.
    David

    Hi David
    To disable Dashboard:
    defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
    You have to restart the Dock afterwards:
    killall Dock
    You still have to tear Dashboard off the Dock although you could amend the com.apple.dock.plist If you wanted to? Amend the persistent-apps tile data settings. To re-enable Dashboard at a future date:
    defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
    Restart the Dock again with the same command.
    Not sure if there is a command to disable Expose? I think some of its settings can be found in com.apple.systempreferences.plist? If it looks like it has what you want you should be able copy it either using the Copy feature in ARD or sending a Unix command like cp (man cp) instead.
    Alternatively apply the plist to an OD Group as a managed preference assuming you've an OD environment?
    Tony

  • UNIX command for disabling Firewall in Leopard?

    I'd like to use ARD to send a unix command to all my Macs running Leopard that will set the OS's application firewall to "allow all incoming connections." I believe that's the default setting, but I've run into some machines that are setting specific access - not sure how, don't really care, just want to turn it off.
    I've been reading up on /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw but the Help seems incomplete and I'm not sure this will accomplish what I'm after.

    defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.sharing.firewall state -boolean No
    followed by a reboot works like a charm. thanks for you help.

  • Disable dvd-drive

    My dvd drive has been making noises whenever I tap the laptop directly above the drive. It has been doing this for a long time now, but lately it has gotten HIGHLY sensitive and buzzes about once a minute if im at the keyboard. It sounds like maybe its trying to recalibrate something, but I never use it anyways so i'd just like to turn it off. Is there a way to do this?

    vendt: It would be possible to disconnect the optical drive's flex cable from the logic board, thus rendering the drive completely inert. But I'm not sure whether, with the connector loosed from the LB, it would stick up too high for the keyboard to fit properly back into place. In that case you would have to remove the drive altogether, or remove it temporarily in order to disconnect and remove the flex cable altogether, then put the disconnected drive back in place. Operating the machine with the drive removed might change the feel of it unpleasantly, but if it doesn't, that may be the thing to do.
    http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1- 67-GHz-SuperDrive/248/1

  • DVD drive makes some noise like inserting a disc

    While I was using MAYA, there was some noise like inserting a disc.
    I don't know what the problem is and what can I do to disable DVD drive or clear this noise while using some program ?
    It's annoy me so much and I worry about my DVD drive.
    Please help me
    Thank you
    Sincerely,

    Did you consider reinstalling MAYA? Try calling the help line, they will be able to help you better.
    Here is the link to the contact page:
    http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1073074

  • Other versions of itunes that do not disable CD/DVD drive on VISTA PC?

    Anyone know if there is a previous itunes version on the Apple site that does not have the CD-disable problem when you install? I'd like to try it. Thanks!

    The daemon tools are not a fix-all for this problem. I tried installing them, and all seemed to work fine until re-boot... then no more CD/DVD drive (again).

  • Terminal - how to find my external hard drive using unix commands

    just discovered terminal and using cd and ls commands, which are the only commands i know, i realized that i can't find my external hard drive. i thought it would be listed on my desktop, as it is in the OSX interface, but it isn't there.
    not that im skilled enough to use terminal yet, but i thought the first step would be being able to navigate the computer's files.
    really curious as to where my external hard drive is and how i can find it using unix commands in terminal.
    i was trying to figure it out myself, then i thought surely someone knows this and could tell me in a sec.
    thanks.
    ibook   Mac OS X (10.4.4)  
    ibook   Mac OS X (10.4.4)  

    "ls /Volumes" will list all volumes, including internal and external hard drives and mounted disk images. I find "disktool -l" more useful in scripts, as it tells you which volume names correspond to which "mount points" under /Volumes. Usually they're the same, but if you have two volumes with the same name, or you try to remount a removable volume before it is fully unmounted, you'll end up with a mount point that consists of the volume name with a numerical suffix.

  • Is it necessary to disable the internal DVD drive to connect an external DVD drive?

    Isit necssary to disable an internal DVDdriver to use an external DVD driver?  I have permanently jammed a CD into an iMac (mid 2007) DVD / CD drive and purchased an external LG Mac compatable (at the apple reps advice), but the external is not recognized by my iMac.  therefore, does the internal drive have to be disabled, and if so, can it be disabled without taking the machine apart?
    Thanks
    Ed Lynch

    Are you still running Leopard as indicated in your profile?
    If so, up until Snow leopard (if I remember correctly) there was a patch needed for the OS to recognize an external - my LaCie burner came with it and once I installed it, it worked great. As mentioned though, it still wouldn't show up until you insert a disk. At this point, I doubt that such a patch would still be available as it hasn't been needed for some time.

  • How can I disable my dvd drive?

    DVD is physically stuck and I want to diable the dvd writer

    Have you tried going to System Preferences CD&DVD  and setting all the actions to Ignore?
    There are reported ways to disable the DVD drive by removing the kext file(s) that deal with the DVD. I cannot vouch for any of these as I have not tried them myself
    How to Disable the Superdrive on a MacBook Pro | eHow is the easiest, moves one file.
    I the above simple solution doesn;t work there is this
    How to disable an optical drive - Mac OS X Hints
    there re other. Proceed carefully and make a backup of the system before doing these.
    regards

  • UNIX command to format or delete all content on Flash Drive

    Need a unix command that will allow me to quickly remove all contents or format a flash drive.
    Computers will be OS X based and I would have to batch process them.
    I'm just looking for the command itself, then my other guys can automate them
    Thanks

    Hi Mihalis,
       The second of your commands has a risk of failure because some of the directories may not be empty when the attempt is made to delete them. The problem isn't that the command won't try to delete all directories. The problem is that it tries to delete higher level directories before the directories they contain. A depth-first search will remedy that problem. Thus, I recommend the following form of the command:
    find -d /Volumes/Flash -type d -exec rmdir {} \;
    or
    find -d /Volumes/Flash -type d -delete
    Gary
    ~~~~
       A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
             -- O'Henry

  • Unix Command Disabled in Startup Items

    I have a MaXtor One Touch II. After installing the software, during the Restart, Mac advised me that the security settings for an unknown (to me) file needed to be fixed or disabled. I disabled it and have now realised it was a UNIX command to watch the One Touch button. I found the file using System Profiler and it lies domant in the Startup Items.
    How do I enable it again?

    I don't know what mechanism is used to disable the "StartupItem" in this situation, but I have read that one way is by creating an invisible ".disabled" file in the top level of a given startup item's folder. If this is the case here, there are a few ways to get rid of the item but since there aren't a lot of details in your post, I'll suggest a generic method. Try opening "/Applications" > "AppleScript" > "Script Editor.app", paste these lines, and click "Run":<pre>set theItem to (choose folder default location path to startup items)
    set ppath to quoted form of (POSIX path of theItem & ".disabled")
    do shell script "mv " & ppath & " ~/.Trash" with administrator privileges</pre>Choose the folder corresponding to the specific startup that is to be enabled, and provide the "admin" username and password at the prompt. If the "startup item" has been disabled by another method, the script won't find a ".disabled" file so it should just fail harmlessly.
    However, there have been issues with other third party startup items being improperly programmed so that they required incorrect permissions in order to function. If this is the case, the "security settings" dialogue may continue to appear, despite choosing the "fix" option. If that happens, check the Maxtor website for updated software.

  • Terminal/Unix Command to Mount External USB Drive?

    I am having a probelm with the directory on an external HDD. The "device" is showing up in the utility software (DRIVE GENIUS/DISK UTILITY) but not the "volume," so it can't affect any repairs except INTIALIZE. So, I'm presuming the drive is physically okay - just the directory is fouled up. Is there some unix command to run that will repair the directory in some manner? Thanks!

    Hi Metroxing,
       What you presume is not a given but yes, the existence of the device file greatly decreases the relative probability of your having a hardware problem. However, I have a question. I'm not sure of what you mean by the term "directory".
       In "UNIX" jargon a directory is that which in "Mac" jargon would be a filesystem "folder". However, there is another data structure in the filesystem that I think is called a "directory". I assume that's simply an abstraction of the Catalog B-Tree and related files. I know about this use of the term "directory" from discussions and readings on Alsoft's DiskWarrior. That is supposed to do exactly what you want, "rebuild the directory structure", and is a relatively inexpensive "best-of-breed" solution.
    Gary
    ~~~~
       Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
             -- Fred Allen

  • Windows 7 GPO - Disable All Removable Media then Re-enable, now CD/DVD drive is inaccessible

    Ok, this might be better placed in the Windows 7 forum, but we're having some issues with limiting access to removable media via GPO.
    We've set up a GPO for Computer Policy, Admin Templates, System, Removable Storage Access, All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access - Enabled
    After finding that this was a bit too restrictive we reset it back to Not Configured (and later Disabled to try and force it) but it seems to break our DVD drives on all Win7 x64 machines (the gpo is limited to apply only to these machines).  Instead
    of the usual icon in my computer it shows a description of the CD/DVD in the drive and the usual "unknown file type" icon.  if you take the cd out it shows the usual cd rom icon, but still gives "access denied"
    There is one workaround, and that is to set the GPO back to not configured and manually remove the CD/DVD device via device manager, restart, and allow windows to re-install the device drivers.
    This is 100% repeatable by applying the same local computer policy (All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access - Enabled" and restarting the machine. 
    Has anyone else run into this problem before?  And how can we fix it without having to go to every machine to remove the DVD drive from device manager? 
    Thanks,
    -Nick

    Hi,
    after looking on many pages for a solution i always found the same workarounds - but for me deleting the device is no option because you aren't allowed to delete devices without administrative rights. Also I can't expect that our users always have to reinstall
    the device.
    So i analyzed whats going on in the registry when the key "Deny_All" for blocking RemovableStorageAccess is set to 1 - with the running of gpupdate i realized that Windows is writing a registry key to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\Device\
    named "security". The problem is that windows doesn't delete this key after setting the key "Deny_All" back to 0. Only sometimes it will be deleted, for example when you apply the policy for blocking devices and reverse this setting immediatly without a restart
    of windows.
    I made a little script which I integrated in the user-gpo (as logon script) for granting access to the removable storage devices:
    '****SCRIPT START****
    ' this script searches for all "security"-keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\ and deletes them
    Option Explicit
    Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
    Dim oReg : Set oReg = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\default:StdRegProv")
    Dim oShell : Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    Dim sPath, aSub, sKey, aSubToo, sKeyToo, dwValue
    ' Get all keys within sPath
    sPath = "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE"
    oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, sPath, aSub
    ' Loop through each key
    For Each sKey In aSub
        'Get all subkeys within the key 'sKey'
        oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, sPath & "\" & sKey, aSubToo
        For Each sKeyToo In aSubToo
            oReg.deleteValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, sPath & "\" & sKey & "\" & sKeyToo , "Security"
            if Err.Number<>0 then
                Err.Clear
            end if
        Next
    Next
    '****SCRIPT END****
    The policy for giving access to removable storage looks like this now:
    - a logon script is executed which searches for all "security"-keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\ and deletes them
    - the setting "All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access" ist set to "Disabled"
    I hope this helps...
    Regards
    Swanson

  • ITunes 10.1 installed but it disabled the driver for my DVD player

    I installed iTunes 10.5.1.42 on my laptop HP PC  and it disabled the driver for my DVDRW player.  Before iTunes installation DVD player worked fine.  After installation DVD player does not work, and is not see by iTunes or the computer.  Device manager shows the player but indicates that the driver has been disabled.
    I uninstalled iTunes and the DVD player worked.  It also worked with iTunes 10.5.0. But then I reinstalled 10.5.1.42 with the same results--disabled DVD.
    Anyone with similar problem or with suggestions???

    some dvd players are very picky on what they will play some only
    play dvd+r some only dvd-r some can't play dvd+rw and or dvd-rw
    dvd burnable is a pretty fragmented std.

  • Is there a key command for ejecting a dvd or cd from a firewire dvd drive?

    I have looked in the chats with no luck. I have two optical drives connected to my G5 powermac one internal and one firewire, and can't remember
    the key command to eject a disc from the external one without dragging it to the trash. I know I used to do that it. option / eject button/ or control/ eject but that does not work. I know you can click on the disc icon then do command/e. But I think there is a way to eject it with a key command and not have to click on the disc first. In other words when you hit the keyboards eject button you can eject the disc in the internal super drive with one push of the keyboards eject button. I want to be able to do that with my external dvd drive.
    Any clue?
    Thanks.

    hmm, it might not be possible without some third party hack.
    Try the following link:
    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050520155515566
    You'll need to paste the provided script into Script Editor, save it as an application and bind a keyboard shortcut to it using one of many many application launchers like Quciksilver, Butler, Quickeys, ikeys or Spark (suggested by the above link).
    sorry that script is outdated.
    here is the correct one:
    property drawerstatus : true
    if drawerstatus is true then
    do shell script "drutil -drive external tray eject"
    else
    do shell script "drutil -drive external tray close"
    end if
    set drawerstatus to not drawerstatus
    Message was edited by: V.K.

Maybe you are looking for

  • My iPod classis is not recognized by my Macbook and self-ejects immediately after being plugged in?

    Hello, I have an iPod classic and I am using a Macbook Pro running Mavericks. Since the last iTunes update i have not been able to connect my iPod to iTunes. I have tried both USB ports and it still won't work. The iPod ejects itself immediately afte

  • Email subject in taiwanese language

    Hi, Login to SAP with English language where program sends an email with attachment. Whether email subject can have taiwanese character?. If yes please let me know the steps requied. Thanks. With Regards, Gandhi Subramani

  • Oracle 10g Numeric Overflow

    Hello, I am getting a Numeric Overflow error when trying to return a NUMBER back to the Java side from within an Oracle package that is inserting a row into a table. The NUMBER being returned is the table ID and is obtained on the Oracle side by usin

  • SAP Management

    Dear Gurus, first of all I am not sure whether this question belongs to this forum or not. I have friend who has been in IT management since last 8 yrs. He wants to switch to SAP Management. Does anybody know or point out the path to such a career sw

  • Just Got E-mail -- My Touch has Shipped!

    Just received Apple Store e-Mail, your i-Touch has shipped. Ordered 16g i-Touch on 9/5, no engraving. Should arrive in New Jersey by Friday.