CD-ROM Light Stays on When CD is Inserted

Power Computing provided the information in this article and it was deemed accurate as of 14 November 1997. Apple Computer, Inc. is not responsible for its content. This article is being provided as is and will not be updated in the future.

When I insert a CD into the CD-ROM drive, the CD-ROM drive light turns on and stays on. The CD never mounts and the machine sometimes freezes.

First, you must determine whether you can boot from PowerCD to determine if the CD-ROM drive is experiencing a hardware problem. If you cannot get the machine to boot from the CD, the CD-ROM drive may be bad.

If the CD-ROM will boot the machine, the issue may stem from software. Simply trash the FWB CD-ROM ToolKit CACHE file AND the FWB CD-ROM ToolKit prefs file from the Preferences folder within the System Folder. Restart the machine and the CD-ROM drive should work better.

NOTE: CD-ROM ToolKit CACHE file seems to be very susceptible to corruption. Trashing this file will save you a lot of time in troubleshooting this common CD-ROM problem.

NOTE: This method can also work when the CD drive light is slowly blinking, with the same CD problems as stated above.

Machines Affected: All