Flashes of Panic

I’m worried about my Powerbook. Specifically, I’m worried about the CD drive.

I got a CD about a week ago with photos from the relay. It was in a padded envelope, but otherwise unprotected. When I put it in, it didn’t mount, nor did it eject.

It’s still in there. Every time I wake the computer from sleep, it tries to spin up the disc and fails, noisily. I suspect the disc itself is probably toast by now, judging from the noise. It’s a slot-loading drive, so I’ve had no end of trouble trying to eject the disk. I zapped the PRAM and reset the power manager (both per Apple’s suggestions,) and though the PRAM reset seemed to be poking the drive in the spot that hurt, it didn’t get the disk ejected. None of the available software tools will even admit that the laptop has an optical drive, which is a bad sign. (I’ve let this go on so long only because I’ve had more pressing deadlines to deal with.)

This drive is actually the second I’ve had in this laptop; it replaced the original one about a year and a half ago. Considering the troubles the tray-loading drive had (and still has) in the iBook which preceded this, it looks like optical drives are the weak spot of the Apple laptops I’ve had. I’ve considered trying to open it up and physically remove the disc, or at the very least disconnecting power from the drive. This may mean I’ll have to take a trip to Cambridgeside in the not-too-distant future, because, as the tech who put the drive in said,

this may be worst notebook to disassemble in the world

Note to self: back up HDD.

Now Playing: Monster from ‘Mousse by The Nields

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