Since upgrading my G4 15″ Aluminum PowerBook’s hard drive to a 160GB capacity drive, I have not needed to use the DVD/CDRW Superdrive – until last night when I needed to rip a CD in to iTunes.  Unfortunately the drive would not mount and would immediately eject any disc I put in it.  I tried over and over again until the drive would not accept any disc in it at all.

Tonight I pulled out all the tiny tools that are need to open the PowerBook and started the process of removing my Superdrive.  The first time you open a PowerBook is a little scary, but after that it is no big deal.  I was able to get the optical drive out and saw that everything looked fine from the outside, but it still would not accept a disc.  So I decided that I would just take the drive apart since I assumed that I would have to replace it anyway.  Nothing to lose.
When I opened it up I found a small piece of plastic was jammed in between a couple moveable parts, so I took it out and started looking to see where it may have come from.  I couldn’t find any clue as to where this thing went.  It was plastic, white, and about the size of the fingernail on your pinky finger.  It was obvious that it had broken off of something, but what?

Then it hit me.  The original instructions from iFixit.com referred to a “spudger” to help get the case open.  Now, I don’t know about you, but not only did I have no idea what a spudger was, I was pretty sure I didn’t own one.  So I improvised and used 2 plastic spoons.  I remember that I ended up using 1 of the spoon handles to help keep the optical drive slot open while I tried to get the case together.  The thing is a really soft aluminum so I kept crushing it and needed something to help keep the slot open.  A tip of the spoon handle must have broken off and fell in to the drive, but it was never loose so you never knew it was in there.

Once again the lesson is to take your time and have the right tools.  A plastic spoon almost cost me $200 for a new Superdrive and installation.