About a month ago I started having issues with my MacBook Pro’s Superdrive. Every now and then, when I inserted a CD or DVD, the drive would make a ticking sound. Over time the noise got worse and the drive began randomly ejecting the disk. Finally, about a week ago the drive refused to mount any CDs or DVDs. After inserting the disk the drive would make a ticking sound and eventually eject the disk.

We have an old unused G4 Mac mini in the house. Thinking that there was a chance of swapping CD/DVD drives we took both computers apart. Unfortunately the Mac mini’s drive was too big to fit in the MacBook Pro.

While I had the drive out looking at it I was thinking that the problem might be mechanical interference. Perhaps the drive got squished or pinched, the tolerances looked very tight. I decided to gently stretch the drive’s slot opening a bit wider. Nothing to loose, I figured. I pried it by hand until it had a slight upward bow on the top of the slot.

We hooked it up and stuck in a CD. . . .

It mounted the CD just fine and I was able to copy songs into iTunes with no problems. Same story with a DVD, it works fine.

I wouldn’t open a laptop lightly, but it can be done with care. There are instructions available on the web for replacing hard drives and opening up Apple laptops. If you’re like me with an expired warranty, an A+ certified computer tech on staff and a dead drive–give it a try. Your mileage may vary–Don’t do this with a computer that’s under warranty!