I am still using a 2005 PowerBook G4. Last night, while wakening the machine from standing by mode, I heard some noise in the CD/DVD drive, and it didn’t sound normal.
Out of curiosity, I took a DVD, trying to insert into the slot. Oops, it seemed there was something already inside, and got stuck. Maybe another disc got stuck? But I was sure that I would never leave a disc inside the drive before shutting down the computer.
First, I tried to open the machine up to have a peek. But before doing anything drastic, I’d better check out what people say online. A Google search led me to Apple’s official support site:
Apple Computers: Troubleshooting the slot load optical disc drive
At first sight, it was not helpful. It asked me to reset my PMU, if not working, then contact Apple support. Not now.
Checked another discussion forum article, a user reported that he succeeded by power off the machine, and restart, during the restarting, he managed to load the disc successfully.
I tried, but it didn’t work. Then, I reset the PMU according to Apple’s instruction, then restarted the machine. At first, it did not work. However, I heard some noise, as if the drive trying to eject a disc. So, I repeated the PMU resetting and restarting routine, as soon as I heard the drive noise, I pushed a disc into the drive. It worked!
So I suppose that the drive mechanism got stuck for some reason. After resetting the PMU and start, the drive tried to un-stick itself, but cannot without some external push.
Anyway, I am glad my superdrive is back.
