Superdrive blocked?

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Dear all,

I wondered if any of you could help me - I've read a number of different articles around the internet with people who have had a seemingly similar problem to me, but I cannot get any of their solutions to fix mine.

I have a MacBook (purchased in early 2009), and yesterday the disk drive stopped working.

On attempting to push a CD into it, it is physically stiff and doesn't want to go in, with a put of pushing it goes further, and the automatic mechanism tries to suck it in (or at least makes a noise), but nothing happens. On closer examination, it would appear that something is catching the disks around the middle of the entrance of the superdrive which is preventing them from simply gliding in as they used to. I'm unsure whether its something broken, or perhaps a locking mechanism that has somehow got stuck.

I have tried all the obvious things, restarting and holding down the mouse, resetting the PRAM and SMC, to no avail.

I don't imagine that anyone has a fix for this as its probably a physical problem, but I thought I'd try as I am not currently near an Apple shop and I don't particularly want to be without my computer for too long, so I'd rather attempt to find a fix myself before taking any more action.

Thanks,
Mark
 
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Have you check if there is another disc in the drive. That is what it sounds like as because the discs are round when you look in it would look like something only in the middle.

Press the Eject button, upper right hand side of the keyboard with a arrow and line under it.
 
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At first I thought it might be a disk already in the drive. Appears to be nothing though - I tried to eject, I then restarted while holding down the mouse and it went through the eject procedure a few times with nothing coming out as a consequence. I also don't appear to be missing any CDs. I guess its possible though, but its almost impossible to see inside the drive!
 
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Then your drive has failed.
You can buy one from several different Mac parts places or from Apple directly, I think Apple still offers that type but they may not.

To change it isn't that hard if you can turn a screw driver and the place to go is MacFixIt to get instructions for your model. They may even sell them.
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
MacBooks, iMacs and Minis all use a slot loading optical drive which do seem to have high failure rates.
 
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MacBooks, iMacs and Minis all use a slot loading optical drive which do seem to have high failure rates.

Yes they do. And as to the Macbook Pro's Apple has chosen to not allow booting the system from an external optical drive of any type, tray or slot load. Seems quit restrictive.

I just booted my Dell Latitude E6420 from the SuperDrive that came out of my MBP installed in a case with the Win 7 DVD in it. So it is not the Intel chipset, as both my Dell and the Mac use the same chipset, and not the drive
 
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Thanks for your help Shootist - It's pretty clear its broken I think. I just wonder what the bit in the middle blocking it is.

I'll look into replacing the drive, I'm hoping it won't be too expensive if I do it myself. In the meantime, a USB external DVD drive will have to do!
 
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Thanks for your help Shootist - It's pretty clear its broken I think. I just wonder what the bit in the middle blocking it is.

I'll look into replacing the drive, I'm hoping it won't be too expensive if I do it myself. In the meantime, a USB external DVD drive will have to do!

Could someone of put a Mini CD disc in there?

If it was me I would pull the drive out and find out what that thing is you are seeing. Even if I broke the drive doing it, as it's no good the way it is. But that's me. I have to know WHY.

Yes any external drive will work but no matter what make, model (Apple or any other) or type ( Slot or Tray Load) you buy you can not boot the MBP from an external CD/DVD drive.

Apple does not allow that.

Good Luck and best wishes.
 
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Of course the MBP will boot from an external optical drive. The only prohibition is installing Windows through BootCamp.
 
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Yes they do. And as to the Macbook Pro's Apple has chosen to not allow booting the system from an external optical drive of any type, tray or slot load. Seems quit restrictive.

Macs can boot from an external optical drive. It works just like booting from an external hard drive.
 
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Macs can boot from an external optical drive. It works just like booting from an external hard drive.

I do not know what model MB or MBP you have but the one I have, a late 2011 15", will not boot from any optical media when trying to boot the computer from an external optical drive.

It just will not do it.
 
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I do not know what model MB or MBP you have but the one I have, a late 2011 15", will not boot from any optical media when trying to boot the computer from an external optical drive.

It just will not do it.

Click for large view - Uploaded with Skitch
Yes it will. Early 2011 MBP. Works exactly the same as every other Mac I've ever owned.
 

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