Hat tip to “TUAW”:http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/24/mod-use-your-macbook-air-superdrive-on-any-machine/ apparently, “Tnkgrl”:http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/macbook-air-superdrive-for-all/ has figured out how to open up a Superdrive, replace a part and thus make it universally compatible with all computers. Great geekout. OTOH, why go to all the trouble :-)? The “photos”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/tnkgrl/sets/72157605790040071/ are really useful so you can disassemble it. The short version is the black bottom comes out if you slip a credit card in the seam. Then you can look the LEDs and see if the drive is lighting up. (Mine was). In the end, I shook it enough that it seemed to unjam the drive. So give that a try before returning.
Some other tricks are noted below that are software related
The short story is that although some folks think it is incompatible with other computers because it needs more current (1 amp is needed to burn, although much less to read). There isn’t specail firmware either. You can take apart the SuperDrive and mount it into a PC and it works fine. What happened is Apple hacked into the IDE-to-USB bridge and make special firmware. The slime!
“Apple Discussions”:http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1550094&tstart=0 has other frustrated people with the same problem. Apple – Support – Discussions – Disc stuck into superdrive AND won’t …
I have just bought a MBA. I managed to install windows ans other software through the superdrive. Now I’ve just put a DVD into it to watch a movie and it got stuck into the superdrive. I browsed on the forum, tried to reboot while holding the trackpad button but the disc is still stuck… at rebooting the superdrives “becomes alive” but it looks like it has no force to eject it (and I have tried rebooting both with and without the power cable connected to MBA)
There is a rumor that holding the mouse button down while it reboots will work. Also that holding down the “C” key when booting might help.
Now here is what I think it happening, it is trying to eject (you can hear the drive spinning and it trying to hiccup). Apple – Support – Discussions – Disc stuck into superdrive AND won’t …
Does it sound Like it’s trying to eject? These new SDs are so thin that it is common for them to get out of alignment. The DVD rubs against the top of the case and stops ejecting. It happens often on the MacBooks and maybe this is the case with the USB drive.
With the aluminum MacBook Pros Apple ships a spatula to adjust the case. It’s under warranty so you should take it back in any case.
As an aside one strange thing is the drive doesn’t appear at all in the “System Profiler”:http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=262108 and they also suggest resetting your “PRAM”:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238 or “PMU”:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319. Most folks are just replacing the SuperDrives though on MacBook Pros as this example shows.
