macbook pro beer accident

June 4, 2010 11:15 PM

I accidentally spilled a tiny bit of beer on my new macbook pro. Now when I try to eject a disk, it tries, but fails to do so. What should I do?
posted by scunning to computers & internet (7 answers total)

I was going to say just get a paper clip and stick it into the hole, but apparently thats not an option on that laptop.

This is all I have to offer then.
posted by sanka at 11:18 PM on June 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is it still under warranty / apple care? Even if it's not you could take it into the apple store and have them look at it. I would suggest saying "when I try to eject the disk, it tries but fails to do so" instead of "I spilled beer on this and when I try to eject the disk, it tries but fails to do so" but that one's your call.
posted by kthxbi at 11:41 PM on June 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

You can buy a new 9.5mm height DVD-RW optical drive for pretty cheap... If you look around on some Apple related forums you can find people that are replacing the DVD-RW drive in their 13", 15" and 17" MBP with second hard drives. I did it on my 17" unibody. There's third party kits which sell the holders that fit into the 9.5mm height optical bay and hold a HDD. Many of these people that are replacing the optical drive have mint condition DVD-RW drives you could buy. I'd sell you mine but I'm in a weird third world country where the DHL shipping for the drive would cost more than its value.
posted by thewalrus at 4:30 AM on June 5, 2010

You should get it looked at, asap. The liquid will corrode your motherboard it it isn't removed properly.

I had the same thing happen to my macbook pro, and i'm just salvaging the few usable parts now.
posted by ts;dr at 8:43 AM on June 5, 2010

They can tell when something's been spilled on/in the computer, so there's no point hiding it.
posted by yjon at 8:43 AM on June 5, 2010

Ignoring the beer part, if a CD gets stuck in a macbook the common approach to ejecting it is to turn off the machine and then boot it with the eject key held down. Have you tried this? It might allow you to at least get the CD out, although I agree with everyone else that you probably still need to think about getting the beer thing looked at!
posted by ranglin at 5:57 AM on June 6, 2010

I can get it to eject, but it just takes several attempts. I went into disk utilities, didn't work. Then I close the lid, open, try, nothing. Close the lid, open, try, nothing. Each time, it's trying, but unsuccessful. Then on the fifth or so try, it'll magically eject.

I'm going to take it to apple, though. It's brand new and under warranty. Funny thing is it just barely touched the lid, or felt like it.
posted by scunning at 7:07 AM on June 7, 2010