Supporting Macs

[Shookster]

Don't Apple keyboards usually come with eject buttons?

 

[nixgeek]

OK, calm down. Don't open the machine because they then won't take it back. Relax....you're learning how to use the Mac. Expect to be somewhat frustrated at first. And listen to what fryke said in his earlier post above yours.

Reboot the Mac, and after the startup chime hold down the mouse button. This will force eject the disc.

To my knowledge, F12 activates Dashboard which has nothing to do with ejecting the disc. If you're using a Mac keyboard, then it should have an eject button for the disc to the far right (btw, there are PCs that actually have keyboard control features in the BIOS, so don't think it's not something PC manufacturers are adopting).

If you're using a PC keyboard, then I wouldn't know exactly which key to use. You might have to head into the Keyboard preferences and map that command to a specific key. While you can use a USB Windows keyboard on a Mac, you don't get the same experience because of the differing keys. And before you complain that it's Apple's fault, consider that you could still use an older AT or PS/2 keyboard that DIDN'T support features found in Windows 95 and up on a new Windows installation but it won't be as convenient as using an actual Windows keyboard.

Dont get so angry. Remember that you're learning a new environment, and you have to accustom yourself to it. Heck, you had to change your normal human intuition to do what Windows wanted you to do, right? You weren't born knowing how to use Windows.

 

[FarmerPete]

I have a logitech keyboard that is Mac friendly. It has most of the mac commands on it. It just doesn't have an eject key. F12 for 2 seconds DOES eject CD's. It's just that my mac mini wasn't even recognizing that I had a CD drive in the thing.

 

[FarmerPete]

Nm

 

[lilbandit]

Relax..this is one of the things that you can now answer in your role as tech support. Buy a new system, fiddle with it, mess it up, fix it...mix this with a little bit of curiosity about different platforms and you learn a huge amount in a short period of time.

 

[FarmerPete]

Relax..this is one of the things that you can now answer in your role as tech support. Buy a new system, fiddle with it, mess it up, fix it...mix this with a little bit of curiosity about different platforms and you learn a huge amount in a short period of time.

Point taken, but seriously...why no eject button on the CD drive?

 

[RacerX]

Point taken, but seriously...why no eject button on the CD drive?

To keep people from pressing it when a CD is in?

This is not a Mac thing... it is actually a non-Windows thing.

If I press the eject button on my older Macs when they have a CD or DVD in, nothing happens anyway. If I press the eject button on my Silicon Graphics systems when they have a CD in, nothing happens anyway. If I press the eject button on my PCs running Rhapsody, NEXTSTEP or OPENSTEP when they have a CD in, nothing happens anyway.


Windows is alone in letting users physically pull mounted volumes like that... and many times Windows users are faced with a blue screen if that volume was in use at the time.

Why is there no button? It would only be a pacifier at best anyways.

besides, I don't have an eject button on my keyboard. I select the CD/DVD/network volume mounted and hit command-e. And if the CD/DVD drive is non-responsive, you now know how to fix that.

Windows was the last of the major platforms to support optical drives, and honestly... they rushed into it. They treat them like big floppies, because that was already part of Windows.

Just FYI... the original Macs didn't have eject buttons for the floppy drives either.

 

[ex2bot]

One thing to think about, and admittedly it's annoying, is that the machine will not give the disc back when an application is using it. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out which app has it. Previous Mac OS's, I believe, let you know what was using it.

I've had to restart the machine about ten times since 2001 (and hold down the mouse button) because I couldn't get the disc out. A couple times, the system didn't even admit to having the disc--as you experienced. Hopefully it won't happen to you again.

You know, I've used at least a half dozen operating systems, such as Tandy, CP/M, Apple II, DOS 3 to 7, command line Unix, X-Window, Atari, Amiga, OS/2, Win 2.0, Win 3.0, Win31, Win9x, Win2k, WinXP, Mac OS 7,8,9, OS X. 1 .2 .3 and .4. over the years. And years.

It's good to experience more than one OS. One gains flexibility and experience. And cool-headedness? Patience? Who knows?

I laughed out loud when RacerX wrote, "I'd help... but I'd rather you returned it."

And RacerX: Thanks for the heads up on Avid free and the other one. I'm going to check them out.

Doug
Card Carrying Mac User

 

[FarmerPete]

I can understand why it wouldn't eject a CD if a program was using it. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if the button on the front of a Windows PC didn't work if the CD was in use. But the thing that is annoying is, it never once read the CD. No program started using it, because it apparently didn't like it. (It was a burnt DVD that I made which had a few movies on it). I guess it wasn't compatible with my Mac, but then it wouldn't mount, thus it wouldn't let me spit it out easily. I rebooted with the CD in the drive thinking maybe a reboot would help things, and when it restarted it didn't think there was a CD/DVD drive installed in the machine! Thats why the 4 ways to eject a CD that I tried didn't work. Even with the ejecting issues and reasons for it that were mentioned, I don't think it is EVER okay to not recognize a peice of hardware because there is a bum DVD inserted. Seems kinda silly.

 

[RacerX]

I rebooted with the CD in the drive thinking maybe a reboot would help things, and when it restarted it didn't think there was a CD/DVD drive installed in the machine! Thats why the 4 ways to eject a CD that I tried didn't work. Even with the ejecting issues and reasons for it that were mentioned, I don't think it is EVER okay to not recognize a peice of hardware because there is a bum DVD inserted. Seems kinda silly.

Just to make sure I'm getting this right... you are a working PC tech person, right?

See, this is exactly why I have so little respect for most PC techs... they never need to understand an issue or work through troubleshooting methodology.

Have you tried asking yourself why this may have happened?

Lets look at this for a second. You put a DVD in and the drive stopped responding. So, odds are the format of the DVD hung the drive (which, by the way, like other PC makers is made by a third party vender... not Apple). When you restarted, the drive wasn't even recognized... not surprising, as the DVD hung the drive before the system had a chance to recognize it.

But of course, none of this would occur to you.

I can break down and put back together just about any Mac. And I'm sure most people could given the same resources (I have service manuals for pretty much all models). But that technical ability is worthless without a strong background in troubleshooting methodology. Knowing how to find and isolate the root cause of a problem should be platform independent (and I think it is, as I was quickly able to troubleshoot hardware issues on both Suns and SGIs without any previous experience on them).

But in the PC world, it seems like you guys can just look up any issue as it is all right there and someone had to have solved the problem before you ever saw it. And I think that makes you guys a little lazy.

Or at least that is what it is looking like based on the frustration you were displaying over this small issue.



Personally... I would have never posted a defeatist statement like yours when confronted with a problem. Specially if I had gone out of my way to make sure everyone knew I was a professional at this type of thing.

I mean think about it... you were about to throw in the towel over a small problem on a system that little old ladies with no computer experience at all can use without problems for years.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... PC experts have the hardest time using Macs. They have a harder time than just about anyone else making the transition. I've seen this over and over again. And it is all because you think you are above learning the basics.

But there is no way around it. And even if you are getting mad... you may want to hide it a little when posting.

 

[FarmerPete]

LOL, if I had SAID my post to you, you would have known that it was sarcasim. Yeah, it was annoying that one of the simplest mechanical functions of a PC is totally lost on a Mac. That putting a disk (that should be readable, all of the other DVD's that I've put in were) into a brand new computer would cause it to forget it even had a DVD drive. But whatever. I trouble shoot very well. But it's hard to trouble shoot something you don't know. You say that a Grandma can run a Mac, well a Grandma doesn't have home made DVDs that they are trying to put into their mac. It's not exactly comparing apples to apples.

But please, if you want to keep telling yourself that PC people are horrible, and you are "enlightened" go ahead. Your knowledge is DIFFERENT than others. Better? No. Different? Yes.

 

[texanpenguin]

Can't you just use a paperclip, like with every other optical drive I've ever seen?

 

[jwoods]

TP, there is no hole for a paperclip, at least not on the iMacs....I don't recall seeing one on the mini's either.

FarmerPete....have you ever used Linux or another *nix based OS? If so, put yourself into that train of thought and get out of the "windows does it this way" mentality. It will save you alot of frustration down the road.

I hate to ask, but you didn't by chance put the DVD in upside down, did you? It should read standard formats.

Get a book (such as the previously mentioned missing manual) and take a gander at the HOWTO's on this site. A list of unix commands might be handy if you want to play around in the terminal.

Also, you might want to make yourself a seperate user and administrator account, if you haven't done so already. Log in as a standard user when playing around and general work. That will help you save you from yourself.

 

[FarmerPete]

Can't you just use a paperclip, like with every other optical drive I've ever seen?

I'm not seeing the hole if you can.

 

[FarmerPete]

I hate to ask, but you didn't by chance put the DVD in upside down, did you? It should read standard formats.

It was inserted rightside up.

 

[Lt Major Burns]

i find if a piece of optical media is badly scratched or corrupted, it'll spin the drive into a loop of trying to read it. painful. i find alt+apple+eject, which instantly sleeps the mac, and thus spins down the optical drive, allows you to restart the optical drive without rebooting the whole computer. you should then be able to catch the eject command into the drives loops before it starts reading the defective disc again.

 

[RacerX]

LOL, if I had SAID my post to you, you would have known that it was sarcasim.

Well, most of mine are too.

Yeah, it was annoying that one of the simplest mechanical functions of a PC is totally lost on a Mac. That putting a disk (that should be readable, all of the other DVD's that I've put in were) into a brand new computer would cause it to forget it even had a DVD drive. But whatever. I trouble shoot very well. But it's hard to trouble shoot something you don't know.

But you know hardware... right? You said you build PCs... so you should be able to tell the difference between a hardware issue and software issue.

You are supposed to be a professional after all.

You say that a Grandma can run a Mac, well a Grandma doesn't have home made DVDs that they are trying to put into their mac. It's not exactly comparing apples to apples.

Well, the thing is a Grandma also wouldn't have been expected to know that home made disks (and some CDRWs) have been known to fail or hang in some drives (both Mac and PC).

You are a pro, so the fact that something like this surprises you... and you can't imagine how it could happen on a new system... well, it is pretty telling.

Besides, I'm not comparing apples to apples, I'm comparing you to you earlier posts...

I've used nothing but PC's for my entire life. From a young age I was fascianted with fixing PC's and I shortly learned all the ins and outs of Windows. I have mastered just about every aspect of the PC world, and I use that information in my job.

...​

My question is, is there a good book or (even better) a free site out there that would help me pick up the basics/advanced issues of macs faster than me just diddling around with it?

...​

So if you just know the important 10% you can impress and wow them. Anyways, I guess the better question is, is there a book that caters to the PC Literate who are switching to Macs? I don't want a book that is designed for a novice. I have a high level of knowledge of computers, and I don't want a book that my Grandma could use effectively.

hmmmmm...

But please, if you want to keep telling yourself that PC people are horrible, and you are "enlightened" go ahead. Your knowledge is DIFFERENT than others. Better? No. Different? Yes.

I don't think PC people are horrible... I think you came to our forum with a lack of respect for Macs and thinking that you wouldn't need the basics. As I pointed out in the beginning, you have a bias... and it's going to make this hard for you.

I've seen this many times before... don't believe me? Read this thread. That guy eventually learns... but not right away.

Honestly, if you can get past yourself... you'll make a great Mac user.

 

[Shookster]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... PC experts have the hardest time using Macs. They have a harder time than just about anyone else making the transition. I've seen this over and over again. And it is all because you think you are above learning the basics.

I was a PC expert that converted. I had problems like this but I didn't let them get to me because I wanted to learn. It seems like FarmerPete feels like he is being forced to. Be open-minded and you should be fine.

Btw, it's easy to hang a PC too by inserting a scratched disc. Everything slows down and the OS takes ages to respond. This is the fault of the disc, not the system.

 

[FarmerPete]

Well, most of mine are too.

But you know hardware... right? You said you build PCs... so you should be able to tell the difference between a hardware issue and software issue.

You are supposed to be a professional after all.

Well, the thing is a Grandma also wouldn't have been expected to know that home made disks (and some CDRWs) have been known to fail or hang in some drives (both Mac and PC).

You are a pro, so the fact that something like this surprises you... and you can't imagine how it could happen on a new system... well, it is pretty telling.

Besides, I'm not comparing apples to apples, I'm comparing you to you earlier posts...

​

hmmmmm...

I don't think PC people are horrible... I think you came to our forum with a lack of respect for Macs and thinking that you wouldn't need the basics. As I pointed out in the beginning, you have a bias... and it's going to make this hard for you.

I've seen this many times before... don't believe me? Read this thread. That guy eventually learns... but not right away.

Honestly, if you can get past yourself... you'll make a great Mac user.

I've used CD drives since they first came out. I have never had a computer fail to recognize that it even had the CD-Drive installed due to inserting a disk that IS GOOD. I burned the DVD about a week ago. It runs fine in every computer I've tried it in. The Mac just doesn't like it. Sometimes a drive wont recognize that you put a disk in when you did. Sometimes a drive wont read a disk. Sometimes it might try to read it and it spins a lot but never does anything. In every one of those cases, a simple push on the eject button will spin the drive down and eject the cd. On the Mac, there is no eject button. It didn't even think there was a CD drive installed to eject. (After I rebooted my Mac again the eject button showed up on the menubar. And when you went to click on it, it said there was no drive installed. As stated earlier, the DVD player also had a similar message). What put me off wasn't the fact that it wouldn't read the DVD. It was that on my Mac there is no hardware controled way to remove a disk. The software was nuts and wouldn't eject it. So I had the two paths to go down to seemingly shut. I found several web pages that were dedicated to removing CD's from a Mac. The holding down the mouse button while rebooting technique wasn't even listed on most of them, although much more difficult techniques were. But every technique required that the computer at least think there was a drive installed.

 

[Lt Major Burns]

my method works.