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Removing a cd from a broken cd-rom drive.[solved]

Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
edited July 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
A while ago a the cd-rom drive in my computer got fried for unknown reasons. Trapped within it is a CD that I want, thus I am searching for a (preferably easy)way to remove the cd from the drive without risking damage to it.

Can I simply take a screwdriver to it and take it apart? Its a disk-tray model if that makes any difference.

Last Son on

Posts

  • DrFrylockDrFrylock Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    There will be a little hole below the disc tray somewhere, about 1/3 from one of the sides. Unbend a paper clip and stick it in there and push until the door opens a little. This may be enough to pop the disc out, otherwise pull the tray out just a little bit and then push it in when you're done.

    Those CD-ROM designers were pretty bright, eh? It's like an escape hatch on the Enterprise.

    DrFrylock on
  • zilozilo Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    Except, you know, without the explosive decompression and blood boiling out your eyes and stuff.

    That probably won't happen.

    zilo on
  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    Huh, that worked amazingly well. Unfortunately it lead to the discovery that that wasn't the drive my CD was stuck in... oops.

    Apparently it was stuck in a different dive, which is not a disk-tray model and for which that trick won't work. I popped the faceplate off so I'm at least sure that this is the correct one as I can see the CD in there tempting me.

    Also this discovery has lead to me vowing to toss all this crap out tomorrow since I have way too much broken electronics equipment in my room.

    Last Son on
  • zilozilo Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    So it's stuck in a slot loader? There should still be an emergency ejection port... thing... somewhere. Even my old parallel-port cartridge-loading CD-ROM (back in the days of single-speed drives) had one of those.

    zilo on
  • DrFrylockDrFrylock Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    zilo wrote: »
    Except, you know, without the explosive decompression and blood boiling out your eyes and stuff.

    That probably won't happen.

    Good point. This is a known issue on some Plextor drives; some of the early caddy-loaders I believe.

    DrFrylock on
  • zilozilo Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    Bah. My old Sony cart loader never had that problem.

    'Course, it did come with a squad of goblins. Damn goblins, walking around like they own the place when all I want to do is play Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (now with voiceovers!)...

    zilo on
  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    Yea a slot-loader, couldn't remember what the heck they were called. There was a hole in the faceplate in a similar location to that of the tray-loader that led to a tab inside the drive, but pressing it does nothing. Looking inside there appears to be a white plastic tabish thing in front of the CD preventing it from sliding out, it appears that this tab was built to slide out of the way when the eject button was pressed but I can't manually force it over.

    Last Son on
  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    edited July 2008
    Ahha, the solution was to simply use more force. Apparently tab-in-the-hole, when pressed firmly enough, moves the tab-holding-the-CD-in out of the way so that the CD can just slide right out. I finally took a ballpoint pen and jammed it in there good until it pressed in far enough to release my precious CD.

    Thanks for the help guys.

    Last Son on
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