Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia Audio, Video, Photography Can't insert disk

I seem to have no end of bad luck when it comes to CD/DVD drives on Mac laptops. My current MacPro drive physically won't let me insert a disk. I push it in about an inch and then it hits a physical stop and won't go any further. It's as if the load mechanism has already cycled through the load sequence thinking there's already a disk inserted. I thought that if I do a restart with the trackpad button held down, it would recycle the load mechanism, but it didn't work. This happens fairly frequently. Eventually the problem seems to fix itself, but I have no idea how or when, because I don't use disks very often. Has anyone else encountered this problem, and have they discovered any fix?

Your problem sounds similar to one I had with my iBook G4. A physical obstruction prevented me from fully inserting discs, and, like yours, my problem resolved itself on its own after a coupl'a days and a coupl'a tries; I never figured out what happened on either end.

It sounds as if the read/write head is stuck in the down position. At least that was the explanation I got from the Genius Desk at the Apple Store when the slot loading optical drive on my iMac did the same thing. I have no idea what they did in the back room to unstick the read/write head, but it has worked well ever since.

Thanks for the replies. So it's not just me then.

Well, it seems to have cured itself, as usual. Though, I was almost at the point of taking it in for service. I tried everything I could think of, and then it occurred to me that if I put the computer to sleep and then wake it up, the ROM drive will usually make a zip-zip noise (the head repositioning, I assume). So, I put it through the sleep-wake cycle a couple of times, and was then finally able to put the disk in. Seems to be working for now anyway.