The CD stuck.

Hello. I'm new on this page, and in mac. I've just received my new imac (new model, black one). with leopard and i enjoy it veeeeryyyy much! It's gorgeous! But... I wanted to install Windows XP on Parallels desktop for Mac 3.0, to play in WoW, but then i heard, that there is WoW for Mac, so i downloaded it, but it is not the problem. With parallels i cannot install windows, because it cannot connect to CD. So i decided to try VMware fusion. I installed my Windows on VMware Fusion, and than i wanted to eject my CD-Rom with Windows XP Proffesional, and my imac makes strange sounds (like it would like to eject disk, but can't do it) and icon of disk disappear from desktop, but then it is again mounted. I don't know what to do! I think i will go to iSpot service to repair it. Maybe you can help me? Please!

P.S: Sorry for my bad english. I'm from Poland and i'm only 13...

I've had this same problem with my mac, its been happening since day one.. I didn't want to send it out to apple so i just thought I would deal with it.. I could still get the cd out but it was a pain trying to pull it out once it got half way out, but it has gotten worse, to now that I can't even eject a cd without trying like 50+ times, and I can barely get it out. Yes, there is something wrong with your cd drive from what I understand. I would take it back to were you got it and they might have to send it out for repair, and depending on when you got it... I would try asking for a new one.

I had this issue last weekend installing Leopard. One thing with Parallels is to upgrade to 5160 and things are better. I had similar issue with CD not being seen. I tried lots and got caught in between System installs with no system at all moving back to Tiger from Leopard on a new Alum Intel.

To eject/insert CD/DVD try this from Apple Support - it worked:

To eject a CD/DVD when the machine is messed up:
-turn off the machine
-holding the option key down (Note new keyboard has no Apple logo on the Option key)
-start machine holding option key down till a graphic of a disk appears
-to eject the disk hit the eject button on the keyboard

to mount CD/DVD when machine is messed up:
-insert disk before turning off
-turn off the machine
-holding the Option key down, turn on the machine
-when the disk graphic appears there is an arrow directly below
-release Option and hit arrow to mount disc inside

So is this CD problem a common thing with the iMac? I ask because I just ordered a 24", but haven't got it yet.

I do not know. My conclusion to my problem was the iMac is somehow "smart" enough to know what is and is not allowed to load. For instance a copy of a copy of my XP disk would not load and the original XP disk did load. A 10.4.7 Tiger disk (from our White 24" iMac) would not run yet the 10.4.10 (from the Alum i24" iMac) that came with the machine did load. Same with the CS suite I had - my CS2 would not load and run yet I could use Migration Assistant and it works fine.

Your 24" will be fine but if you move from Tiger to Leopard you must have up to date programs and moving backwards is tough.

Nah, it came with Leopard preloaded. Thanks for the info.

You can also try the old trick of holding down the mouse key when rebooting to remove media.

^^ That is if the OS is rejecting the CD Eject. Clearly here it is a hardware problem (as it was in my case). I got my drive replaced without any hassles and everything's nice and sunny now...