CD drive broken

A few weeks ago, I was riding my bicycle with my 13-inch MacBook (in its InCase sleeve) in my backpack. I went over the handlebars and landed on my shoulder, rolled over my back, and then stood up.

I checked my machine immediately for cracks etc. and it was fine. Then about a week later I tried to put a CD into the drive and it didn't get pulled in as it normally does. The drive made similar (but not identical) noises to what it used to make (I'm assuming they are a result of the action of pulling the CD in).

My computer's still under the one-year warranty until the end of June, but I heard accidents weren't covered by this warranty. What can I do?



Thanks for your help!

Oooo. Bummer.
Sounds like the fall dislodged the CD drive somehow. Options...
Take it to a repair center (expensive!)
Get an external CD drive/burner.
Lie to Apple and say it hasn't been dropped, just simply stopped working! If there's no physical evidence of it's accident you could be ok (if they don't read this and put 2 and 2 together!)
Wait until warranty runs out and try and replace it yourself (not recommended if that kind of thing seems scary - which it is to most.)

Good luck with it.

The optical drive slot in the white & black Macbook's can close up if the Macbook has been squashed. From the outside the Macbook looks fine, but internally with the optical drive removed an alloy casting on the inside, part of the bottom case, can often be seen closed up. In most cases the top case/keyboard can be removed, HD slid out, then the silver metalic tape and optical drive removed to gain access to the inside of the slot. Then a flat piece of metal can be inserted in the closed up slot, then twisted to open it up. Then reassemble. If the optical drive was damaged by the impact it may have its base pushed in slightly, this is obvious to a tech and voids warranty on that repair, as would the closed up slot. If you find trying to insert a CD a very tight fit, it'll be a closed up slot problem. You can open it up from the outside, but this can leave tell tale marks on the inside of the plastic slot and slightly mangle the hairy strip. Good luck.

Thanks for your help everyone.

However I have a question for techiesteve:

It IS difficult to insert a CD ("very tight fit" as you put it) and the hairy strip is already somewhat mangled. The plastic slot is not visibly messed up from the outside, but is likely messed up on the inside. What do you recommend? Should I bring it in to Apple and play dumb about the accident? Should I just say I was carrying it in my backpack?

Again, thanks so much!

You can play dumb but they will most likely know what happened.