External Mac SuperDrive – Force Feeding Stuck Drive

Had a user with an external Apple Superdrive. The drive had a CD stuck in it that would not eject. I tried forcing the eject via Terminal, but the drive would not give up the disc. I ended up connecting the drive to a PC and got Windows to force eject the disc. Once the disc was out, however, the drive would no longer take discs in. I could stick a disc in all the way and the drive would just resist.

Now, if I told the PC to eject the disc while I held it in, the drive would accept the disc but Windows would never show the disc to be in the drive. In fact, when I double-clicked the drive’s icon, the drive would spit out the inserted disc and tell me to insert a disc.

I eventually grabbed a metal spudger tool and removed the bottom of the drive. I hooked the drive up to an iMac running Windows in Boot Camp (the machine was already booted to Windows and I did not restart it, in case you were wondering). In any case, I tried inserting a disc and the drive took it in! Not only that, but Windows recognized the disc in the drive. Back in business!

I put the back of the drive on again and took the drive to the user. We tried several discs. Each time, the drive happily took them in, showed the disc on Finder and then spit the disc out again after we ejected.

I have no idea why removing the back of the drive kicked things into gear, but I thought I would share this in case anyone else had a similar problem. Your mileage may vary. I am not responsible for any damage that may occur to your drive if you take this endeavor on yourself.