Out of the blue - when I insert a disk in the drive of my PowerBook G4 it spins and makes some noise, goes quiet then ejects itself. I cringe at the thought of having to possibly pay for a repair. Any ideas on how to exhaust all possibilites for resolving this at home? I've restarted, checked bunches of disks... blah, blah. Help please

Hello,

It is possible that your drive is bad. You mentioned that you checked a bunch of disks... all home made, or some commercial too? How about Music vs. Data?

You can try going to a Radio Shack and getting a CD-ROM cleaner. It is a CD with a little brush on it. It goes in there, and if there is dust around your eye, it will clean it out. Might bring it back to life. Or you can try an air can... blow a couple bursts of air in there and see if that does it.

If it is a bum drive though, you will need to replace it, or consider a USB / Firewire external unit. I have a USB & Firewire DVD burner that works quite well, and it can go from machine to machine.

Christian