Anatomy of an Optical Drive

Manual Ejection Mechanism

All optical units have a manual ejection mechanism, where you can open the drive tray even with the computer turned off or with the drive out of the PC. This is a very old trick, but we will need to use it to open our optical unit. First, locate the manual ejection hole on the front of the unit.

Figure 2: Manual ejection hole.

Then get a paper clip, open it and insert it in the hole, like shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Inserting a paper clip in the manual ejection hole.

You will feel some resistance. Push it until the tray is a little bit open, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Tray opened thanks to our trick.

Then, just pull the tray with your hands to open it completely.

Figure 5: Tray completely opened.

Now let’s open the optical unit.