Apple

I got a 1.25GHz eMac with the stock Combo Drive. When I insert a blank CD, it will eject it after a few seconds. Can it be a easy fix or do I need to replace the drive?

Drive replacement is the only fix if your are sure that ALL blanks are rejected. (Some drives don't like some blanks)

Try some lower-speed or older blanks if you have them around. As disks get newer and faster the ink type gets lighter, which some old drives can't handle. However, I suspect your drive is broken. Thankfully CD/DVD burners are cheap. Sadly it's a total pain to install one in an eMac. You literally will need to disassemble the entire system - I've done it a few times in my life and came away annoyed every time. I can't say I was one bit sad to see the eMac's discontinuation - that system has given me a lot of hell.

I agree with bri3d. I've taken apart a couple of eMacs over the years, and they are quite labor intensive. There are some decent teardown/repair guides and service manuals on the net if you search hard enough for them -- definitely worth a look if you haven't opened up one of these machines before.

+1.

I have had 2 of these over the years, and I still have one in the office as a 10.5 server. A few weeks ago it lost a disk so I did a ram / disk / airport (:D) upgrade at the same time. Took me half a day, super pain. Though, it also took me a half a day to get my Mac Mini fixed up...

I end up changing the combo drive to a spare cd burner I had laying around. Yes taking the eMac apart is a pain. I thought I fired it after I put it back together, took it apart again, then found out I forgot to plug the power button back in.

I have done that a few times, don't feel bad.