MetaChat - Gaaaaah! Puter problems. My iMac disk seems to have died before backup.

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21 May 2007

Gaaaaah! Puter problems. My iMac disk seems to have died before backup. →[More:] Yeah, so I kinda had a hunch that it was not feeling well and began the process of backup up everything a few days back. Didn't get very far (only so many hours in the day and the five baby-free ones I get I need to work), so I'm sitting there working and suddenly I get that beachball from hell. I cold-quit the machine after five minutes of watching a frozen system and listening to the fan on my 20" sound like a small airplane. I can only boot in safe-mode now and wish to insert a repair CD - alas, there's that backup CD still in there that I have finished burning. fsck -fy gives me "the volume could not be repaired" so, I'd really like to get another CD in there. Here's the kicker, df tells me there's no CD in there and drutil list gives me some lines about a library not loaded. drutil tray eject won't work and right now I've been watching the computer respond "i/o timeout" to drutil tray open. How the feck do I get that damn CD outta there so that I can insert some super disk-repair CD? Argh!?

I do have a laptop as well and plenty of ethernet cables if anyone has any ideas... Failing that can I have a hug? There's a lot of stuff on this disk that I can't loose... :(

post by: dabitch at: 17:21 | 16 comments

ps drutil tray open even says "Reason: image not found" so the computer has no clue that there's a CD lodged in there. Double argh! There seems to be no mechaniical way of getting a CD out.

That's it, I'm getting some tweezers.

posted by dabitch 21 May | 17:24

daaamn, ok does anyone have a pair of paper-thing tweezers to lend me?

posted by dabitch 21 May | 17:30

thin! thin!

posted by dabitch 21 May | 17:31

dabitch, how frustrating.

{{{hugs}}}

I found this via a Google search:

"If a CD or DVD gets stuck in your computer’s optical drive, you can actually extract it by yourself without seeking help from a technician. What you need to do is to insert a straightened paper clip into a tiny hole that is located on the front of the drive, typically right next to the eject switch. Once you’ve inserted the clip, the stuck CD should be easily ejected."

If it were me, I would keep pushing the eject button and wait for a different result. I'm dumb like that. ;)

posted by LoriFLA 21 May | 17:36

Yeah that tiny hole-thing - they stopped doing that. I can't find anything like it on my 20" iMac. Googled for it too, I'm really stumped that it doesn't seem to have any mechanical way of ejecting a stuck drive!

posted by dabitch 21 May | 18:00

*hugs* I got nothing else for ya, I was going to say use the paperclip trick. My 13 inch MacBook has no paperclip hole either, upon further inspection, so I'm really interested in how you do this.

posted by Luminous Phenomena 21 May | 18:10

Sorry, better pic, here's my machine. No holes. :/ Though some forums speak of a mythical pinhole inside the slot. Yeah, oh-kaaay....

posted by dabitch 21 May | 18:11

Try holding the eject button down immediately after restarting and grab the CD as soon as it pops open.

posted by doctor_negative 21 May | 18:12

I can only start the mac in single user mode. The harddisk is fubared, hence the desperate need to eject CD so that I may use some sort of disk doctor utility CD instead.

posted by dabitch 21 May | 18:18

*tries it anyway*

Yeah close, I got a whirring noise but no CD ejected. Damn. *watches gray screen of neverending startup*

posted by dabitch 21 May | 18:21

You could chop into the side of the case with an axe and remove the disk manually, then patch over the hole with duct tape. After all, it's only a Mac, not a real computer. Real computers have little holes where you can manually eject a CD no matter what.

*hides*

posted by dg 21 May | 18:29

*whacks I/O error bitching iMac over dg's head*

Nope, that didn't get the CD out either.

posted by dabitch 21 May | 18:43

But wait!

*Pulls CD from behind left ear*

Here you go little girl! Now, would you like a lolly?

posted by dg 21 May | 18:46

Nothing to offer but sympathy. ***hugs***

posted by typewriter 21 May | 19:07

I got the cd out! with tweezers! to be continued............

posted by dabitch 22 May | 01:54

Oh man oh man. i feel for you as my mac crash still has me in a bit of a twirl. If you haven't already, take it to some place reputable and get whatever you can recovered or saved. Unless it's total gobbledegook, it helps the sucking vaccuum of helpless nothing all that time and effort feeling--

posted by ethylene 23 May | 18:51

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