Foo - To the Help Desk: "Reboot" is not a fix

The help desk folks at my office are nice folks and I love them dearly except when I call them for help. Their answer to every problem is "Reboot." I was given a new Gateway computer a couple of months ago and, every once in a while it decides that it just doesn't want to eject a CD.

Push the eject button...nothing. Click on "Eject" in Explorer...nothing. Shut down everything that is running and try it again...nothing. Call the help desk..."Reboot."

They never fix anything or find out why the CD won't eject. Arrrgghhh!!!

did rebooting allow you to eject the cd?

Look on the faceplate of the CD drive. You'll see a little pinhole, grab a paperclip, unfold it, and probe inside that hole. You'll feel a little plate about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in there that you want to push against with the paperclip. As you do the drawer will start to open, you might need to help it out to fully open. My guess... bad drive or the system has been compromised.

Next time, ask for a supervisor or a visit! Don't take "NO" for an answer. Be assertive, make the bastids work!

Look on the faceplate of the CD drive. You'll see a little pinhole, grab a paperclip, unfold it, and probe inside that hole. You'll feel a little plate about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in there that you want to push against with the paperclip. As you do the drawer will start to open, you might need to help it out to fully open. My guess... bad drive or the system has been compromised.

Next time, ask for a supervisor or a visit! Don't take "NO" for an answer. Be assertive, make the bastids work!

If the CD is corrupt this is the way to do it. Sometimes my Dell hangs on bad data DVDs and I have a special tool that fits in the little hole and ejects the DVD.

But you may need to uninstall the drivers to the CD drive and then reboot. Windows (if that's your OS) will reinstall the drivers after the reboot. Or you may need to do it manually. Also, look for current drivers on Gateway's site. And tell the helpdesk to quit being lazy ******s.

Hey, thanks for the reminder! Gotta do a reboot! See ya!

did rebooting allow you to eject the cd?

Yep.

Look on the faceplate of the CD drive. You'll see a little pinhole, grab a paperclip, unfold it, and probe inside that hole. You'll feel a little plate about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in there that you want to push against with the paperclip. As you do the drawer will start to open, you might need to help it out to fully open. My guess... bad drive or the system has been compromised.


Yeah, one of the help desk folks told me about that when I first got the computer. Another one of the techs said I should only do that after the computer is powered down.

is this a work related problem or is it a music CD to listen to while you work? don't go crazy if it's not directly work related - IT guys hate that.

is this a work related problem or is it a music CD to listen to while you work? don't go crazy if it's not directly work related - IT guys hate that.

It's work related. I have a large set of CDs of clip art. I was pulling images from several of them so rebooting after each CD was not a practicable solution.

It's work related. I have a large set of CDs of clip art. I was pulling images from several of them so rebooting after each CD was not a practicable solution.

okay - gotcha. just checking. my dad used to work in IT and he'd always complain that he get all these calls because someone wanted to install a game or a 3D desktop background or something silly like that and they'd crash the computer because of it.

Good thing we don;t have those paperless offices they promised or we would no longer have the paperclip, possibly the most important tool to ever touch a desktop computer.

Patience is also a virtue. As the IT guy, I can attest that curernt CD-ROM drives are much slower to eject than older ones... mainly because they spin the disk so much faster that a longer delay is required to allow the disk to stop spinning before the drawer can open. So if you're used to instantaneous results, be patient - it may open in 40 seconds or so. And take care of your CDs; scratched or dirty CDs can make the drive lock up.

And yes, "reboot" is the answer to most problems. Especially in design offices. (Especially if you use Quark, that constantly-crashing darling.) If you have to reboot constantly, there's a problem - but a helpdesk guy asking for a reboot isn't laziness - it's the first step in any troubleshooting process.

The help desk folks at my office are nice folks and I love them dearly except when I call them for help. Their answer to every problem is "Reboot." I was given a new Gateway computer a couple of months ago and, every once in a while it decides that it just doesn't want to eject a CD.

Push the eject button...nothing. Click on "Eject" in Explorer...nothing. Shut down everything that is running and try it again...nothing. Call the help desk..."Reboot."

They never fix anything or find out why the CD won't eject. Arrrgghhh!!!

20 years doing something with pc's, especially windows based os's. Reboot fixes 95% of the user end problems. It is a valid initial thing for your IT guys to tell you.

In this case though, sounds like you need a new cdrom. Rebooting may force it to pop open once but won't perm fix the problem every time.

Also make sure you don't have any applications that's using the CD. If you've opened an image off the CD, some application will lock access to the CD so you can't eject it. So copy the images to the HD and open it from there instead.

I've found that stubborn CDs can be ejected by the CD/DVD-writing software, like Nero BurningROM. Open up the program and hit the EJECT button on the menu-bar, then minimize the program until you need to eject again.

Reboot is an excellent troubleshooting strategy, especially if the problem is sporadic. It's too hard to perfectly reproduce everything that has happened since the computer was last rebooted. Rebooting it puts it in a known state (barring corruption of hardware problems), and if the problem can still be reproduced, then there's hope it can be tracked down.

Don't be too hard on the tech-support guy. He's got a difficult job what with the equipment he's given. Imagine having to pedal at the same time as carrying on a troubleshooting conversation:

http://www.gururacing.com/humor/MicrosoftTechSupport.jpg

^^^lol^^^^

poor working conditions in that photo. he doesn't even have clipless pedals or comfortable lycra shorts. they could also at least give him a microsoft team jersey.

[QUOTE=DannoXYZ]Don't be too hard on the tech-support guy. He's got a difficult job what with the equipment he's given. Imagine having to pedal at the same time as carrying on a troubleshooting conversation:

Haha.

On a related tangent, Dell is opening a third support call center in India that will eventually employ several thousand people. You can all relax though, this one is to provide tech support to Dell users in India.

If i could just get you to reboot the computer before posting.

poor working conditions in that photo. he doesn't even have clipless pedals or comfortable lycra shorts. they could also at least give him a microsoft team jersey.

:roflmao:

If i have a problem on my own i can usually troubleshoot it mysel, but if someone else (like my mom or little brother) messes something up then i always restart the computer first. No use trying to figured out what they did.

reboot.........hmm, must be a windows thing

Their answer to every problem is "Reboot."

:roflmao:

This is snipped from my company's IT service letter that came this morning.. haha...

reboot.........hmm, must be a windows thing
Not really a windows thing.
Its a "I don't understand computers well enough and i don't understand what I have done to my system."

My XP desktop system reboots maybe once a week - sometimes once every other month. It sees more action then 50 normal users and sees this action non-stop.

If you put me in a Linux desktop I will be rebooting that sucker several times a day and probably after a few weeks of usage I'll have it down to maybe once or twice a week. Granted I wouldn't be doing much on it :p but I'd still be crashing it pretty hard.

^^^^you must be doing something seriously wrong or have a hardware problem^^^

^^^^you must be doing something seriously wrong or have a hardware problem^^^
Nope
Red Hat 9 right before they killed RH and went to Fedora Cores
there was a bug where if you pulled up the dropdown menu right next to the Klipper and wdived to a specific menu and then to a specific sub menu and thenhovered over a menu item then KDE 3 would crash. Doing it 2 or 3 times ini a row would kill it completely and you'd be at the dos prompt and to the best of my knowledge every attempt to start KDE again would fail until a reboot was performed.