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mousehouse · Nov 15, 2010, 06:30 AM

HI'all,

Something strange happened this weekend on my Mac Mini that's got me completely puzzled, even after 8 years in the Apple camp.

My Mac mini is a C2D version, 1.83GHz dual core, 2GB memory, combo drive swapped when it died for a Pioneer DVR-K04 drive about a year ago. Running OS X 10.6.4.

On Sunday I burned a DL DVD using the Finder containing episodes of a TV series, totaling 8.3GB. Data for the burn is on an external 2TB USB drive which works flawlessly. The burn went perfect and when it started verifying I clicked 'cancel'. After I pushed 'eject' on the keyboard the disk icon disappeared from the Finder and started spinning at high velocity without being ejected by the mini. I've had this before on many Mac's, even my MBP does this occasionally. Usually a reboot fixes this.

At that moment I get a popup from Software Update listing some iLife'11 updates that I still needed to install and 10.6.5. I click Install, sure go ahead, figuring that after the reboot I will be able to eject the the disk.

Unfortunately, no such luck...

There is no way I can eject the disk, tried everything I could remember and find. Tricky thing is that that DVD drive is not detected anymore either. Using System Profiler it usually shows the drive under ATA and Disk Burning, now it shows no devices were found in that category. I've checked logs etc. Nothing.

Even stranger, I also have an external USB DVD burner that I use, which is also not detected! Could be completely unrelated, could be the same issue.

Anybody have any ideas?

Cronocide · Nov 16, 2010, 11:36 PM

Do you live in a humid area of the world? I have heard of rare cases where corrosion caused by humidity causes the drive to behave erratically. You could try cleaning the drive connector, but that would require tearing apart your mini.

Hope I don't cause too much extra frustration.

mousehouse · Nov 17, 2010, 05:14 AM

Thanks for all the replies.

Strange thing is that the drive is fairly new (about 9 - 12 months) and does not get much usage. I mainly use my external USB burner, which has stopped working (showing up in the Profiler) at exactly the same time.

Probably my installation is b0rked somehow... I think I'll setup an external drive with a 10.6 image and try to boot from that to see if I can eject the disk and detect the drive.

SunSeeker · Nov 17, 2010, 06:19 AM

Try restarting and hold down the option key as though you are booting from a different partition

You should see a grey screen with a hard disk icon (at this point you normally would choose to boot from external drives and dvds etc)

At this screen pressing the eject button is very likely to work unless the fault is hardware related

Remember that the hardware fault could be the eject key on the keyboard, however this seems unlikely since the disk is not visible in the finder

leonid_sb · Dec 28, 2010, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by mousehouse

Thanks for all the replies.

Strange thing is that the drive is fairly new (about 9 - 12 months) and does not get much usage. I mainly use my external USB burner, which has stopped working (showing up in the Profiler) at exactly the same time.

Probably my installation is b0rked somehow... I think I'll setup an external drive with a 10.6 image and try to boot from that to see if I can eject the disk and detect the drive.

Have you been able to find a resolution to the problem and have your DVD drive detected? I am facing the problem that my Pioneer DVD-RW DWR K06A was not detected in System Profiler under Disk Burning. It shows no devices were found in that category. I figured that since the sytem doe snot detect the drive there is no sense in all sftwre realted tricks.Although i did them all several times keeping mouse button while restarting , holding eject while restarting, drutil eject etc. None worked.
I managed to eject CD by ... inserting the credit card into my iMAC then shutting it down.
When i turned it up holding the card in in the slot the disk was ejected.
The problem is the DVD-RW DWR K06A still not detected in System Profiler under Disk Burning. It shows no devices were found in that category. Anybody have any ideas, please?

mousehouse · Dec 28, 2010, 04:10 AM

Same problem still. Even the disk is still in the drive, I'll try your credit-card trick.

My guess is that 10.6.something removed support for the Pioneer K03 / K06 drives (don't remember which one I have) - or that the drive BIOS just dies under that version of OSX.

I have not found any way to get the drive detected...