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This article was first posted on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=255 

‘Tis the season… for miniature CD and DVD disks. A friend of mine received a miniature audio CD in the mail, and decided to try it in their computer’s tray-loading CD drive.

It never played. In fact, the miniature CD is probably jammed in the drive between the spindle the tray. There are two possible fixes:

1. Remove the desktop computer’s front panel and press the balky drive’s emergency eject button. This is a flat black button that is built into the front of the optical drive. Usually this button is hidden behind the computer’s plastic or metal case. If the miniature disc isn’t jammed into the spindle, and it’s resting on the drive tray, it may come out when the tray is ejected.
2. Replace the drive.

Sadly, I think the drive will have to be replaced. Miniature discs tend to jam a sliding drive tray.

A standard-size optical disc is 120 mm wide. Miniature discs are smaller, and they work because the data track or spiral of a compact disc start from the inside of the disc, near the plastic spindle hole.

According to Wikipedia, a standard-size compact disc has a data spiral that is 5.38 km or 3.5 miles long!

I’ve seen miniature discs that are shaped like business cards. In fact, I picked up a disc from the Central Intelligence Agency last week. The disc promoted job opportunities at the Agency. Perhaps the disc itself was an intelligence test!

I’ve also seen hardware devices that shipped with mini CDs. The CD contained some device drivers.

There are some digital cameras that use miniature discs to record photos. Sony’s Mavica line is the model I’ve seen most often.

Never ever try to insert a miniature optical disc into a slot drive. This is the style of drive found on most Apple computers, and I’ve seen this style on several Windows-based laptops.

There is no drive carrier tray at all, and these slot drives are build to accept standard-size optical discs. The eject mechanism in the drive usually cannot push a miniature disc out of the drive.

The only fix is replacing the drive, and that’s not covered under Apple and other manufacturer’s warranties.