[timinky]

Sorry I keep leaning on everyone here about my beloved
Pismo Powerbook. The stock DVD rom drive is giving me
problem. Seems that only way I can get a disc DVD or CD
to play in the drive is to apply continual pressure against
the side of thedrive as it sits in the bay. The minute I release
the pressure drive spins down and playing ceases. Apply
pressure drive spins up to speed and plays again. I've pulled
the bay out and re seated but no change. Cleaned laser eye,
System profiler recoginzes drive. Could this the death of the
DVD rom? Or is there a solution, aside from replacing drive?

[Clive]

There’s probably a sensor somewhere in the drive itself that tells it whether the drive is closed properly or not. These things are usually simple mechanical devices - hence a pushed in drive makes the sensor contact and the drive runs. Probably a bit of cardboard wedged in the right place would fix the problem.

But the real issue is… trying to find where to put that sliver of card!?

But, really, why bother messing around with it, how much can a replacement DVD ROM drive be - EUR:50.00?

[tinkered]

When my DVD-Rom died I got a second battery for the slot and use an external FW400 Super Drive on the once or twice a year I need a optical drive. The second battery adds hours of unplugged time, perfect for using on the road for light computing and web surfing.

[Don Pickett]

The Pismo's DVD drive is known to be the weak part of the machine. Mine failed after about two years. I ended up buying one from someone on here and just popping the new one in, which has been fine since. It's a pretty cheap replacement. If you want, you can get an upgrade to a superdrive through one of the aftermarket places, like Powerbook Medic or OWC.

[rjt1000]

My Pismo optical drive died several years ago and ultimately I put a combo drive in the sled. But while I was trying to trouble shoot it, I remember reading an article that mentioned that dust/grime can get into the mechanics that sense when the drive is shut or not. In the authors case, cleaning that did the trick. It didnt work in my unit, but probably is worth the time to try. If not, just look for a bare combo or superdrive that plays nice with OS X and install it into your Pismo sled.

[tigas]

Any OEM slimline drive (up to 8x dvd writer) will fit the sled and solve that problem for 50 bucks. Just make sure it's enabled as Master. Otherwise, it'll still work but not be bootable.

[wubrew]

Originally Posted by timinky 

Sorry I keep leaning on everyone here about my beloved
Pismo Powerbook. The stock DVD rom drive is giving me
problem. Seems that only way I can get a disc DVD or CD
to play in the drive is to apply continual pressure against
the side of thedrive as it sits in the bay. The minute I release
the pressure drive spins down and playing ceases. Apply
pressure drive spins up to speed and plays again. I've pulled
the bay out and re seated but no change. Cleaned laser eye,
System profiler recoginzes drive. Could this the death of the
DVD rom? Or is there a solution, aside from replacing drive?

I had the same problem after I dropped the DVDrom. I had to do the same thing to get it to work. Got tired of it and got a Pioneer K 05. Now I can burn everything fast as well as booth from OSX DVD.Only complaint is can not find a suitable panel to cover the slot loading drive. A kind of ugly but functionally it is great compared to the old DVD rom.

Cheers

[finboy]

I think the Pismo drives actually have a little switch that tells them when they're open or closed. My drive had the same symptoms, so Applecare fixed it, and another one. When the third one died, I bought a DVD writer from Wegener and it works great. OS 9 doesn't like to sleep with it, but OS X boots and everything.

It's the LG drives that were the problem. I've never heard of anyone having trouble from the Panasonic version of the drive. To this day, I won't buy anything with LG on it if I can avoid it.