[iBook] Matshita Disappeared: Resolved!

[Tony Gamble]

Hey, folks...
	Thought I'd let you all know that I've been able to self-help my  
problem with the G4 iBook SuperDrive.  To recap: I had been watching  
a DVD while performing other file handling tasks, when suddenly my  
DVD player app froze.  After force-quitting and rebooting, I had  
found, to my dismay, that the iBook could not eject the inserted  
DVD.  Nor could it see the drive in Apple System Profiler, nor even  
in Open Firmware!  I was sure the drive was toast, even though I  
could hear it being mechanically active on every restart.  Many of  
you pitched in with helpful hints, such as ejecting from the OF  
command line, holding down the trackpad clicker at boot time, etc.   
But since the iBook wasn't even aware there was a drive there, none  
of these familiar options would work.
	Then today I had a brain storm.  Well, more of a small static  
discharge, actually..... what if my user-installed RAM had gone  
south?  Nothing else was crashing, and there were no telltale  
anomalies indicating a problem with RAM, but still.....
	So I pulled out the 256Mb stick of RAM from the J7 DIMM slot,  
rebooted with the trackpad clicker held down, and PRESTO!  Out pops  
my DVD!  And the blessed Matshita shows up just fine in ASP!
	Does anybody know what the CAS latency is for the built-in RAM on  
the G4 1.42Ghz iBooks?  The stick I'd had in there was CL2.5 and I  
was wondering if that might have caused the issue.
	Thanks again, everyone, for your tips!  Hope my experience can help  
out someone in the future.

Tony