[Ti] Stuck CD in CD-ROM Drive

[Dennis Fazio]

--On Tuesday, May 13, 2003 02:12 PM +0800 "Leo D. Venezuela" <levenezu at myrealbox.com> wrote:

> I inserted one of those small non-round CD's in my TiBook's CD-ROM drive.

I believe that the mechanism that grabs the CD to push it out the slot cannot latch onto a mini-CD and the credit card trick to guide it out the slot doesn't help with these disks. I think that disassembly by a service technician may be your only option. I didn't find a Knowledge base article on this after a quick search, but I thought I read something about this one of the help boards once that your drive is doomed if you insert one of these things.

Unfortunately, there is not a clear enough warning on the drive of a new machine or in the user guide to NOT insert a mini disk in a slot loading drive.

One desperation idea that might work before a trip to the shop. Make a CD out of card stock paper or very thin plastic that is thin enough to insert on top of the mini CD but strong enough to pull out. leave an extension of it on one side so some of it sticks out after insertion. Don't forget the hole in the middle to go over the spindle if the mini disk hasn't covered it. Put some sticky stuff on one side, perhaps from parts of several Post-It notes glued on nice and flat. Something sticky enough to grab onto the mini disk, but not so sticky that it doesn't slide in before grabbing. Insert into the drive if you can and see if it grabs the disk and then try ejecting it with the regular eject or the paper clip/manual method.  This may gum things up even worse, but if you're looking at replacement anyway, there may not be much to lose.

--
Dennis Fazio
dfz at mac.com