PowerBook G4 optical drive died ?

[MacDonaldsd]

My 12" PowerBook G4 optical drive won't "suck" in a disk
Ive tried a restart and this hasn't helped, theres nothing jammed in there as I can insert a CD-R all the way it just doesnt take it.

Is there anything I can do ?

 

[MatthewCobb]

What kind of noise does it make? I had that - it kind of groaned and eventually spat out the CD/DVD. I ended up replacing it. Not so difficult as you think - you can pick up a drive on eBay, and get easy-to-follow instructions here.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/

Read through them if you're in doubt - very straightforward. Good luck!

 

[MacDonaldsd]

Its not making any noise, was working fine a couple of days ago.

 

[CrackedButter]

Yet my Superdrive for example, will copy information off the disk but won't let me copy information onto a disk.

iTunes mentions my laser isn't powerful enough and OSX just gives me an error.

 

[SuperCompu2]

I dont really know how to do this in Mac OS, someone can tack on to my post here, but maybe you can check to see if it got disabled somehow?

The Device Manager in Windows is what I think of when I say this, but I dont know if theres anything similar in OS X.

 

[MacDonaldsd]

Resetting the PRAM (I think its PRAM, I held down ctrl+option+shift+power at start up) seems to have solved it.

On a side note does this mean its a "one off" or that my optical drive will break sooner rather than latter ?

 

[MatthewCobb]

does this mean its a "one off" or that my optical drive will break sooner rather than latter ?

a) Good for Zapping the PRAM (a bit like changing the magnesium concentration in PCR, for the molecular biologists out there - it often works).

b) Yes it will break in the end, but then we're all dead eventually. I wouldn't worry, personally. If it happens a few more times, then think about replacing it.