Why does PB keep ejecting my audio CDs

It'll reject (eject) them if they're a little bit scratched. What do the disks look like?

mad jew said:

What do the disks look like?

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I can answer this. They are like little round silver plate with a hole in the middle. It would be reflective on one side and with labels on the other...

sorry, couldn't help myself.

inlimbo: can your cd played on other computers as well?

angelneo said:

I can answer this. They are like little round silver plate with a hole in the middle. It would be reflective on one side and with labels on the other...

sorry, couldn't help myself.

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You mean you have round CDs!

sometimes if the CD has a tiny scratch or chip in the right place (or wrong place depending on your point of view) this will prevent the PB loading them. If the CDs have that silly copy protection system on them the PB will also eject them (the one that actually runs a windows executable first). I think it was EMI that did this the most. I'm sure google will help you here.

inlimbo said:

Why does my PB's CD-ROM drive eject some (not all) of my audio CDs. I stick it in and it makes a few noises for about 10secs and then ejects it before iTunes picks it up.

So far it has only happened to my Flaming Lips - Yoshimi battles the pink robots and Asian Dub Foundation - Enemy of the Enemy CDs.

Weird? Any ideas?

Cheers
inlimbo...

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I think Devman is the only one who got it. It'll reject CDs with copy protection, but not all of them. My Jack Johnson "On and On" CD doesn't work, but most of my other copy protected CDs do. My Yoshimi album definitely works, but I got it early right after release, so maybe prints made after that are copy protected.

I'm not entirely sure this is the case. I've had old pressings (definitely not copy protected) do the same thing, while a different copy of the same CD works just fine. None of my CDs have even minor scratches on them, so in my case that's not it either. The defective CDs so far have always read fine on all but one of my computers, usually my Powerbook is the one that can't read them, but sometimes it's the PowerMac. I've kind of assumed that it's because some CDs have small defects and one computer happens to be sensitive to some defect while the others aren't.

I had this the other day, I looked at the CD and it seemed fine but it wouldn't work and kept ejecting. So I gave it a quick rub with my T-shirt (middle of disc to out side, never follow the curve) and it worked fine.

So far all my copyprotected CDs workfine, as far as I'm concerned it's just ignored on a Mac.

The only disc that wont play is one where the plastic has crystalised, who ever said CDs would last forever was lying.

didnt Sony make some copy-protection system which was overcome by simply going over the disc serial number with a black marker? its a strange idea but it might just work.

Bjork - Vespertine would not open on my Powerbook 15". it worked in my 17" (i think).

Copy protection me thinks.


peace | neut

Bad music = spit
Good music = play

inlimbo said:

The CDs are not scrated. Well it has a few little scratches but so do all my cds.

So my conclusion is that it has to do with scratches.

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hmmm, that's not very good logic.

copy protection is not standardized. i've had trouble playing certain CDs on various computers, CD/DVD players/drives and i haven't found a consistant copy protection scheme. though the FBI warning labels are becoming more standardized.


peace | neut

antrabbit said:

I had this the other day, I looked at the CD and it seemed fine but it wouldn't work and kept ejecting. So I gave it a quick rub with my T-shirt (middle of disc to out side, never follow the curve) and it worked fine.

So far all my copyprotected CDs workfine, as far as I'm concerned it's just ignored on a Mac.

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Not always. I had two CDs that would not load at all on a Mac due to copy protection. A friend that had a windows machine ripped them for me. I don't know all the details but he explained there is some windows exe that is loaded first and get this - the bypass on windows is simply to hold down the shift keywhich prevents this exe running, and then he just ripped the music as per normal to mp3s and put them on a memory stick for me.

I have the same issue myself with a couple of non scratched and non copy protected CD's. One of these is part of a double CD compilation set, the other works fine. Whilst these just get spat out by my 1.33GHz powerbook, the 1GHz powerbook rips them just fine - lucky for me. My guess is that it is all down to manufacturing tolerances of both the CD's and the players and that some combinations just won't play fair. If your PB is under warranty then maybe you will have a case for a replacement superdrive but it could be a tough battle. Try ripping the CD's on your local retailer's display model as a test.
Another problem I have recently heard about is burrs of plastic on the inner and outer edges of CD's. Cheaper manufacturing processes tend to leave the rough edges which can and should be removed - use a bic biro or something similar to snap them off. These burrs can cause the CD to sit incorrectly or spin with a wobble making them harder for some players to read.

I've had my Powerbook eject a couple of discs, but what I noticed was that these were largely silver top ones. (retail cds) What I found was that it would eject the disc unless I put it in with whatever text was printed on it, at the "top" of the disc. (the first bit that goes in)

It sounds strange, I know, but it did work...