Disc Won’t Go In SuperDrive

[tensixturtle]

Hello,
I just bought an iMac G5 (early 2005 20”). When I tried to install Tiger, however, I am unable to put the disc in. It simply won’t go in the slot at all. I opened it up and looked in the slot, and it appears that there is no disc inside. Instead, a little white plastic piece is physically blocking the disc from going in. Please see the picture. I do not know of any other good and easy way to get an operating system installed on this computer other than a disc, so is this repairable? Or do you think that I need to replace the drive?
Thank you in advance for the help.

 

[DeltaMac]

Looks like the "trigger" that would turn on the "insert?" motor, that pulls the disk into the drive, then works in the opposite direction to eject the disk.
It's possible that the insert/eject motor is dead, or the drive itself is just gone. You could try removing the top cover on the drive, to see if there are any obviously-broken parts inside. I think I have seen some sites that offer repair services on optical drives, but that may turn out more expensive than just replacing the drive.
Certainly, the optical drive would be the simplest way to install, but not your only choice.
USB flash (thumb) drive. You would need to restore a Tiger installer DVD to a USB drive (either a flash drive, or an external USB drive). There are steps that you have to use in the Open Firmware boot screen to enter a command to boot from a USB drive.
Easiest external installer would be from a partition on an external Firewire drive, if you have one of those.
Or, you can use Target Boot drive mode. That only needs a firewire cable connecting from your G5 to another Mac with a working optical drive, and you can use the optical drive in that other Mac to do the install.

 

[Slartibart]

There are slight variances in the drive model over the years, here is a guide how to take it apart and repair/solve the problem of not being able to insert a disc. The piece of plastic you see is indeed - as @DeltaMac already suggested - part of the mechanical insert detection.

 

[tensixturtle]

Or, you can use Target Boot drive mode. That only needs a firewire cable connecting from your G5 to another Mac with a working optical drive, and you can use the optical drive in that other Mac to do the install.

@DeltaMac thank you for the suggestion! I hooked up the iMac G5 to one of my other Macs and it worked very well. I did not know that Target Disk Mode could be used for operating system installs, what a useful feature.

here is a guide how to take it apart and repair/solve the problem of not being able to insert a disc.

@Slartibart thank you for the suggestion. When I have a chance I will open it up again and take a look. If it can be repaired without having to replace it that would be ideal.

 

[tensixturtle]

@Slartibart I finally got a chance to open up the SuperDrive, but looking at it, I think it seems as though there is a complex mechanical issue that I am not experienced enough to figure out… are all of the SuperDrives the same, or would I need to buy a model specific one?

 

[profcutter]

Does that long metal swing arm at the back of the drive move freely? If so, can you just push it toward the back of the drive, and see if that releases the lock?

 

[aurora72]

I have a ComboDrive (manufactured Dec 2002) with the same mechanism. Its mechanism operates fine, the disc goes in the slot and the laser head reads the disc, you can tell by the sounds coming that the disc is being read correctly but the logic board of this combo is defect, so the disc doesn't appear on desktop Because no disc appears on desktop there 's no way to eject the disc, so I must open the cover and remove the disc by hand. In a spare time I plan to remove the logic board and check for the defect.

 

[tensixturtle]

Does that long metal swing arm at the back of the drive move freely? If so, can you just push it toward the back of the drive, and see if that releases the lock?

@profcutter thank you for the suggestion. I looked at it but the arm you are talking about doesn't seem to be attached to anything except the spring on one side. I think it would be too complicated to try to repair this

Are the SuperDrives model specific?
Thanks.

 

[profcutter]

Hmm! Curious! That shouldn’t be the case. There’s a rivet that it pivots around, maybe it popped out? I’m not sure re:models, double check that the interface is the same, and the height of the drive, should swap out fine.