I have a first edition MacBook Pro (asking for trouble), and I just had an interesting run-in with the optical drive. I put in an old burned CD with a paper label (stuck all the way down, mind you – no bits sticking out), and it was making some very odd noises, although it was recognised as a valid CD.

I thought I’d just eject it and take a look, to make sure the label was stuck down, etc – it ejected, and all looked fine. I put it back in, and then the drive just made odd noises, and tried to eject again.

This time, however, it started ejecting, then got stuck and swallowed the CD again – I didn’t even see the thing poking out of the drive. This process repeated several times before I restarted the computer, holding down the mouse button. That was no help, and just continued the same process all through the boot, and continued once the machine was finished booting – it would make odd grunting noises for about 20 seconds, then attempt to eject, obviously fail, then swallow the disc again and repeat the process.

This had happened before, but not nearly as bad – sometimes the drive won’t eject a cd; strangely enough, if I squeeze the CD tray (hands on top and bottom of the MBP and squeeze together), sometimes it’ll help the CD out. I was doing this for the 15th time or so, and finally about 5mm of the cd stuck out of the drive – before it sucked it back in (which it was going to do), I grabbed it and unceremoniously yanked it out of the drive.

Just to make sure all was well again, I put in another cd, and ejected it successfully.

So, if this happens to you, try squeezing the drive. Some other suggestions are here and here.

So, what is the deal with this? How is it that a supposedly high-quality piece of machinery like the MBP can so frequently choke on fairly inoffensive-looking discs? Ridiculous.