G4 Mini Gray Screen, won't eject DVD

Hi all,

Well, I ran into a bit of a problem today - I was at work and checked my email on my server at home (mac mini G4) - while checking it stopped responding. I did some other things, and found that the machine was totally unresponsive. I got home at lunch and power cycled it. It never came back - just a gray screen, and eventually the lovely blinking folder issue.

Ok - not deterred by this, I threw my OSX 10.4.3 server dvd into the drive and tried to boot. It wouldn't boot from the DVD. It spun but would just sit at gray until the blinking folder shows up.

I tried the press C to get it to boot to CD no dice.
I went into the open firmware and typed eject cd after a while all I get is can't open eject device.

Ok, now I'm not sure what's wrong, but I really want my dvd out before I do anything more. I tried booting with an external DVD drive (usb) but I couldn't get that to work (I have 2 licensed copies of tiger server) - it didn't boot from DVD.

I'm going to try the reset-nvram when I get home in O-F, but in case that doesn't work I'd like to try to get my DVD out before going to apple (not that I care that they see my black label OSX tiger server dvd, I just don't want to forget it and loose it) - so does anyone know of a hardware way to force the dvd to eject? It's a slimline drive; I see two holes (one in front on the left if you're looking at the drive, and one on the back) that could conceivably be eject ports, but they don't look like them to me.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Have you tried restarting and holding down the mouse button at the same time?

Yup. tried that too, no joy. Granted I may not have held it down long enough but...

Have you tried holding down the eject key or F12 if you don't have one (ie. not using a Mac keyboard) during boot?

Yup, tried that too. Although from what I'm reading back at work, I may not have held it long enough, but I'm not sure what's long enough before I should just know it isn't gonna work.

The mouse button trick requires that you hold it down until the disc comes out.

I just read something else that is new to me but might be of help:

Reboot your mac and hold the Option/Alt key on your keyboard. This should end in a dialog offering all boot-devices your Mac realized. Now press the eject button on your Mac keyboard and hope it ejects the dics

Click to expand...

Update: I've solved the problem at this point - looks like it was a HD failure. I had read elsewhere that sometimes if the HD fails right it can prevent the DVD drive from booting properly or ejecting the media. I took my mac mini down to the MB and removed the HD then reassembled everything else - the system booted normally and allowed me to eject my DVD.

I have another HD on order and it should be here tomorrow. Once I have it in and going, I'll know for sure if it was a failed HD or something else.