Tech Files
Opening Dead CD-Media Drives
It's 2 AM and finally time to relax after building your new rocket PC, so you reach for your favorite CD-ROM game... After five minutes of increasingly frantic searching through piles of empty computer boxes, beverage cans, and grande tortilla chip bags, you find it.
Problem: your CD is hiding out inside that old clunker of a CD-ROM drive you replaced last night ... which is sitting in a stack of retired components ... unplugged. Inoperative. Look but don't touch. So near and yet so far. You scream quietly into the night.
But fear not, intrepid gamer! "There is another." Wait, wrong universe. There is a solution! Every CD-media drive comes with a manual release mechanism you can activate quite easily with the proper tool.
Put the Paper Clip into the Eject Hole
Check out the picture of a CD-ROM drive below. See the tiny hole below the tray? That's the eject hole. Pushing a properly reconfigured paper clip into the eject hole activates the release mechanism for the tray. Out pops the tray bearing the precious CD-ROM, and soon you'll be on your merry way to late night gaming bliss!
Figure 1: The Tray
Figure 2: Properly configured paper clip
- Scott Jernigan