[King Mustard]

I have a mate with an Apple iMac G3. There is a problem with it, however.

When a CD is inserted into the slot-load drive, it automatically ejects without even reading the CD first.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

[houltmac]

Most likely one of two things: Either it's a drive that can't read that media (be it that it's actually a DVD, scratched so badly it won't even attempt it or whatever) or the drive itself has power but is failing. You could try cleaning it with a drive cleaning kit, or else it's probably a replacement part required.