Wednesday, December 24, 2008

mini cd/dvd -> Macbook -> oops!

As I inserted the mini CD for the Tevion "Potent Pad" (which I was sure only contained Windows drivers anyway), I thought "uh, how will a slot loading drive pick up a mini CD?". After a few seconds of silence once I had inserted the disc (and poked it in further with an envelope, to bollox things up further), it became apparent that I should have stopped and thought about it, rather than simply thought about it and carried on regardless...

A quick web search yielded predictable advice such as "power off the machine and use a paperclip to extract the disc" or "disassemble the machine and DVD drive to remove the disk". Since I wasn't keen on scratching the optical mechanism to ruin or dismantling the computer, I kept scrolling until I found the following blatantly obvious and blatantly sensible suggestion from 'ashleyman':
"Or just tip it so the drive faces the floor and give it a few taps!!"

This served me well and I safely removed the CD within 5-10 seconds of gently shaking and tapping the laptop with the slot facing down. Sometimes the solution is so obvious that you can completely pass it by!

3 comments:

  1. Hi, I know that you posted this 3 years ago, but you you still own the Potent pad? Because I have lost the drivers for mine and really want to find someone who has the drivers. I have looked everywhere on the net. Ben

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  2. Howdy Ben, I do still have the pad, but I used it on a Mac, and now it's plugged into a laptop running Ubuntu upstairs. I never needed the drivers from Medion/Tevion, so I've lost track of that damned disc.
    Does it not work plug-and-play in Windows?
    I'll have a dig around upstairs later and see if the disc turns up!

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  3. A little late to the party, but anyways;
    I have the Tevion drivers, you can download them here: http://www.neonengine.com/index.php/files/Sample/Tevion-Potentpad-drivers-setup.exe/

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