Mac repair shops popping champagne after 'eco-friendly' DVD gets stuck in hundreds of Macs

Dan Warne
17 January 2008, 12:22 PM


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Mac repair shops in Britain are doing 'brisk trade' after a free DVD in the Daily Mirror newspaper got stuck in unknown quantities of Apple Macs.


British computer magazine PC Plus is reporting that Mac repair shops around the country are doing 'brisk trade' after a free DVD in the Daily Mirror newspaper got stuck in unknown quantities of Apple Macs.

The 'Ecodisc', was distributed to millions of Britons free of charge with their Sunday newspaper.
The disc is only half as thick as a regular DVD, and made of biodegradable materials, which meant was supposed to reduce the environmental impact of producing that many DVDs, which -- let's face it -- were mostly destined for the dustbin.

Unfortunately, it also got stuck in the slot-loading drives used by nearly all Macs. The very angry owners of those Macs are now having to have the drives replaced.

The manufacturer of the EcoDiscs is taking no responsibility, blaming Apple for using drives that don't use an ejection mechanism approved by the DVD standards regulator, the DVD forum.

And, the Daily Mirror points out, the disc has a warning printed on it saying 'no Apple slot in drive" (which, given the poor English, we can understand people missing).

It's not the first time people with slot-loading drives have been caught out by discs that aren't perfectly manufactured to specification.

Some cheap discs are manufactured slightly thicker than the official standard, and while they may slide in OK, they get caught on the way out.

One reader of Popular Mechanics had this tale of success to tell: "i tried everything and my CD wouldn't come out. i even hit my laptop a little. nothing worked until i went onto my itunes and i pressed "burn CD" and it ejected enough to take it out. my cd drive thing doesn't work anymore but i got the CD out which makes me feel so much better."

Have you had a 'stuck disc' experience or other optical media horror story? Share it in the comments below including what you did to fix it!


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Mythbuster:

Anyone see the Mythbusters episode where drives 52*#*#. The higher rpm speeds are causing brittle and other weak disks to explode in the drive.

Anyone had problems with dvd's caught in Xbox drives?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous1234567:

The DVD that came with a UK Macformat magazine got stuck in my iMac. First time it happened was the day after I bought my Mac and I panicked. After shelling out $20.00 for a magazine for the disc to get stuck, I've never bought one again.

Kinda ironic though isn't it?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous-:

a few years back, i was making a bartpe bootable disk. a copy of Windows XP RTM(mitsui brand disk i think) was in a LiteON 52x drive. it was on the third rebuild and at the time i never thought it would heat up. anyway i was watching TV next to the computer when i heard sudden massive scratching and grinding sounds. it scared the sh*t out of me and i yanked the power for the whole room in 2 seconds.(the whole room was running off *1* socket). after that i opened to find that the cd had superheated and exploded inside the drive. i had to pull out the drive, disassemble it remove hundreds of pieces of plastic, foil and other stuff from the cd(they were completely everywhere in the drive..). thank god that was only a copy of XP! anyway, after a reboot, all turned on well except now the turning part of the spindle that holds and rotatates the disk was slanted so now when you put a disk in one half would be higher scratching and grinding so now it still sits there next to two other drives:).

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Me:

All disks have come out by using a pin in the manual release hole on the front of the drive.
Not familiar with the mac setup but as with everything Mac, I'll assume you have to have a specially registered key for the proprietry Mac hardware .... Heh Heh ... OK Mac Fanboys, let me have it !!! (Waiting for the Flaming to start)

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Maddles:

The old Macs (pre-G5 at least) had the universal drive button eject thing, but the newer Macs just get you to hold the mouse button at boot. It activates the eject mechanism even if their is no disc.

And what do you mean by Macs require special equipment to do normal things? I can't remember the last time I had to find something like that in the 13 years I've been using Macs.

I've actually had quite a nice experience with Mac disc drives. Heck, my parents' G5 iMac shoots it's discs out.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

bob:

"The manufacturer of the EcoDiscs is taking no responsibility, blaming Apple for using drives that don't use an ejection mechanism"

even though this is a non standard sized disk, bit of a cop out, other computers use slot loaders, just the vast majority are macs.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Maddles:

Exactly. I did work experience at a Next Byte store (a Premium Apple Reseller) and a laptop came in with a stuck disc. Once they got it out they tried on their own and it worked fine.

The same disc got stuck when they tried it, so they compared thickness and the one they took out was oddly shaped. It had been one of those cheapo compilation discs.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

tin:

Replacing the drive? Unless it's killed it somehow (unlikely), why not simply remove the drive cover and take the disk out? Would only take an extra minute or 2 over removing and the drive anyway.

As for my stories... I had to remove a CD from a CD drive at the school I work at. Most of the drives have had the tray driving rubber band stolen, so the trays don't eject. Of course some enterprising moron decided to not give up, and pried the tray open with a ruler. They then put one of their own music CDs in, which they wanted back.
And how did I recover it? Simple. Paper clip into the hole, which if they had done in the first place would have saved me a trip.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

sandra_madness:

Pay Up Fanboys!!
Same thing happens with a PC,easy to remove or a new DVD-RW less the $40.00 if done yourself! Hear that, "yourself". How much would this cost a mac user?
Anyway I have two staff using iMac's, I will be warning them to check what disks they use at the office before inserting them.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Michael:

I can't imagine that it's causing a problem for large numbers of Mac owners - I thought owning a Mac and reading the Daily Mirror was mutually exclusive!

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Guy:

Land and Freedom eco dvd, free with the Independent on Saturday got stuck in my mac drive.
As the drive attempted to eject the disc I fished around with the corner of the dvd card sleeve!!!! The disc is flexible enough to flip up and travels over the top of the sleeve leaving enough poking out to grab with your finger tips, and no harm done to the drive!!!!

HOW IRONIC, saved by the packaging the crap dvd came in!!!!

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

jak:

I always threw the DVDs away because it's doesn't have the subtitles, never! They don't care!

29 February 2008, 8:50 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Spannerotoole (New user):

The funny thing is, that apple wants to be seen as a "Green" Company whilst their hardware forbids it.

27 July 2009, 12:08 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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