Mac Mini DVD stuck in drive - not the usual.

[Greenturtle]

Hey, I've got a copy of Snow Leopard and I put it in my drive as I was turning on my Mac Mini. It sucked it in, whirred lots, Leopard booted up but there was no disk mounted to the desktop.

I then restarted, booted with the 'c' button and got a question mark which then went onto booting into Leopard. Still there was no CD on the drive, so I hit the eject button which didn't even bring up the eject logo.

I went to the System Profiler but there is just no DVD drive detected! I go to to Disk Burning 'No burning device was found. If you are using an external device please make sure that it is connected and powered properly.'

I really need to get this disk out of the drive and I've tried all the terminal 'drutil tray eject' and I atttempted to boot into Open Firmware but holding 'Command, Option, O and F' just didn't do anything as it just booted up as normal into Leopard.

My last resort is just dismantling the thing and prying the disk out.

Has anyone any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

 

[MWPULSE]

Hey, I've got a copy of Snow Leopard and I put it in my drive as I was turning on my Mac Mini. It sucked it in, whirred lots, Leopard booted up but there was no disk mounted to the desktop.

I then restarted, booted with the 'c' button and got a question mark which then went onto booting into Leopard. Still there was no CD on the drive, so I hit the eject button which didn't even bring up the eject logo.

I went to the System Profiler but there is just no DVD drive detected! I go to to Disk Burning 'No burning device was found. If you are using an external device please make sure that it is connected and powered properly.'

I really need to get this disk out of the drive and I've tried all the terminal 'drutil tray eject' and I atttempted to boot into Open Firmware but holding 'Command, Option, O and F' just didn't do anything as it just booted up as normal into Leopard.

My last resort is just dismantling the thing and prying the disk out.

Has anyone any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Sam

It sounds like the disc drive might of come lose of the connection for the drive. so i would be tempted to pry it open, check its plugged in, although the question would then be, how it came loose in the first place.

The reason i say all that, is cos it didnt show up the drive in disc burning..

food for thought??

PTP

 

[Greenturtle]

But would the disk actually be whirring on startup if that were the case? You can actually hear the thing spinning inside and getting faster before it just stops.

 

[MWPULSE]

But would the disk actually be whirring on startup if that were the case? You can actually hear the thing spinning inside and getting faster before it just stops.

hmmm good point.. it may well be a busted DVD drive.. i hope not for your sake.


Good Luck

PTP

 

[California]

Sounds like it is broken, but look at it as a good time to upgrade the hard drive as well as the superdrive on the Mini. Get a faster bigger hd and faster better dvd burner. Ebay is fine if the optical drives are new and under warranty. Can't recall if they are PATA or SATA in your revision of the Mini.

 

[tbayrgs]

I had the same problem with a DVD yesterday---tried all the tricks with no luck. After searching these forums, someone suggested an article online where someone with this problem slid a small piece of cardboard into the top over the top of the DVD. Once this was done, he rebooted and apparently the disc just needed to be forced down a touch--it successfully mounted and he was able to eject it.

Well, I decided to give it a go, used an insurance card without a mag strip and slid it carefully into my drive, using a little gentle wiggling to force it over the top of the DVD. It must have engaged b/c once i rebooted, the DVD mounted, appeared on my desktop and I was able to eject it. Upon examination of the DVD, saw no scratches, warping, or other damage so I'm not sure what happened but I've successfully inserted a bunch of discs since then with no issue.

Hope this works for you as well. Good luck.

 

[Greenturtle]

Hey thanks for all your replies. In the end I just dismantled the Mac Mini, removed the drive and pulled the CD out of it. I then put the drive back into the Mac Mini and booted it back up.

For some reason the drive is now fully functional again and detected by the O/S! I then tried an unimportant CD which mounted, so I then ejected and proceeded to install Snow Leopard.

I now have 10.6.1 on my Mini so all is well

@tbayrgs Sorry I missed your post, but thanks for such an informative response.