[Macpartners] Flaky Powermac G5 DVD drive

[Allan Doyle]

James (and others who have offered good suggestions off-list),

I just tried this, but get the same result. The drive makes noises as  
though it's trying to open. Only the Mac firmware eject command seems  
to give the drive enough oomph to open. It's a bit curious that it  
works that way, but who knows. Maybe it holds down the eject signal  
for a little longer than the Mac OS eject does.

I've poked around with Google, and as Oliver Thomas also mentioned,  
putting in a new drive is not expensive or hard, but may require  
moving parts of the original case onto the new drive to get the new  
drive to fit properly. I think this is what I'll do.

	Allan

On Nov 7, 2007, at 10:57 , James Cain wrote:

> Allan,
>
> It's not obvious to me that it is your drive that is flaky.  What it  
> sounds like you are telling me is that you can reliably, 100% of the  
> time, eject a disk from the single user mode of OSX. Have you tried  
> using something like iTunes to eject the disk?
>
> I guess what I am saying is, that it is possible that there is a  
> corrupt file with-in your current OSX install that is preventing the  
> software eject from working.  I suppose you can check this by  
> locating a spare CD/DVD drive some where and temporarily installing  
> it.  If that drive works, then presumably your DVD drive is flaky.   
> If it is the drive then you should be able to find a replacement at  
> MicroCenter for around $40.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
> James R Cain
> Educational Technology Consulting
> Office of Educational Innovation and Technology, DUE MIT
> 77 Massachusetts Avenue
> Bldg. NE48-308
> Cambridge, MA 02139
>
> 617.253.3909
>
> On Nov 6, 2007, at 2:30 PM, Allan Doyle wrote:
>
>> I have a Powermac G5 with a flaky DVD drive. The drive drawer will  
>> not
>> open if there is media in the drive unless I boot into the firmware
>> (command-option-O-F) and use 'eject cd', in which case it does open.
>>
>> Based on the collective wisdon, what's the best (cheapest!) way I can
>> get a replacement drive? The system is not under AppleCare. I don't
>> even need a whizzy dual-layer drive, I just need to be able to  
>> install
>> from DVDs.
>>
>> And, as long as I mentioned AppleCare, what is the MIT policy/
>> suggestion on AppleCare?
>>
>> 	Allan
>> -- 
>> Allan Doyle
>> Director of Technology
>> MIT Museum
>> +1.617.452.2111
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Macpartners mailing list
>> Macpartners at mit.edu
>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/macpartners
>

-- 
Allan Doyle
Director of Technology
MIT Museum
+1.617.452.2111




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