The Right CD player

[HowardBrazee]

I loaded a bunch of CD-Gs into kJams with a significant number of graphic errors.

I was using a LG slim portable DVD writer that tested out for writing CD-Gs.

David Cotter mentioned "it could be you have a CD drive that doesn’t properly implement error correction", and he was absolutely right.

I got a hold of an Apple USB SuperDrive and am re-ripping all of those CD-G disks. Instead of that multitude errors, so far I have found only one minor error, and reloaded that song successfully.

The Apple drive doesn't have a light showing when it is running, and doesn't have a way to force the disk out (which I needed with my LG drive). And it is significantly more expensive. But it does the job reliably.

[HowardBrazee]

Note: Almost all of the bad rips were from one set of CD-Gs. Quality vendors also matter.

[HowardBrazee]

I had a couple of CDs that opened up two places on Finder. I could not close them or eject them, and couldn't even shut down my Mac.
(I had to push the off button.) With the LG drive, I could eject the CD-G with a paper clip. I got "Gal Pop: Volume 1 Disk 2" stuck and went to the Apple Store, where he booted up a laptop holding the left mouse button to eject that disk. So that particular problem doesn't appear to have anything to do with either kJams nor the CD drive.

[DeusExMachina]

If your machine has an eject key, you can also just hold that when restarting.
But the easiest way is just to launch Terminal and type:
drutil tray eject

[HowardBrazee]

I tried using Terminal (I forgot the command), but what did the trick was re-booting while holding the right mouse button.

[dave]

or literally pull the USB plug on the cd drive. you'll get a warning about properly ejecting, which you can ignore. when plugging it in, press the eject button. no restart necessary.