I picked up a new PowerBook G4 Gigabit with the slot loading combo drive last week, replacing my PowerBook G4 500. The first thing I noticed on the machine was how different the Slot-Loading of the Combo Drive worked. I had to push the CD or DVD nearly all of the way in before the drive would grab it. Needless to say, I was a little worried because I did not want the drive to go bad a month or so down the road, which would require I send it to Apple for 7-10 days.
I picked up a new PowerBook G4 Gigabit with the slot loading combo drive last week, replacing my PowerBook G4 500. The first thing I noticed on the machine was how different the Slot-Loading of the Combo Drive worked. I had to push the CD or DVD nearly all of the way in before the drive would grab it. Needless to say, I was a little worried because I did not want the drive to go bad a month or so down the road, which would require I send it to Apple for 7-10 days.
I did a little research on Apple’s web site, talked to a guy I know at an Apple Store, and found the answer to my problem. Apple answered popular demand! So many people complained about the Slot-Loading DVD apparently, that Apple adjusted the new drives to grab the disc further inside the drive, thus increasing the speed at which you load a CD or DVD. Nice Apple.
On another note however, I also learned that the new drives will only accept regular, 120mm, full size discs–no longer can you insert irregular shaped discs, such as those funky business cards people hand out.
Just some interesting facts I thought you would be interested in.
Visit the new Apple Knowledge Base and go to Article ID #88275. Here is a brief quote from the article:
CD-RW drive troubleshooting
Note: The way the CD-RW drive on the PowerBook G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) computer accepts media differs from the DVD-ROM drive. Discs must be inserted about three quarters of the way into the drive before it will pull in the media.
Note: The 120 mm disc (see Figure 1 above) is the only size disc that can be used in the CD-RW drive.
