Cant insert disk intoMacBookPro5,5 13" Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53Hhz

Swampbug3, in my not-very-humble opinion, the slot loading optical drives are garbage; they are too small physically for the mechanical complexity to be reliable, and are the Achillies heel of any Mac they are used in. I have around ten different Macs ranging back to the Original Powerbook 100, and EVERY slot drive has crapped out on me; the only one that works is the one I replaced in my iMac recently, while I have about four tray drives ranging all the way back to a Powerbook 1700CS that still works like a charm.

I think it's about time us consumers pressured Apple into stopping degrading their great products with garbage drives!

Mayer is right; the only fix is to pay a hundred bucks, and spend many hours swapping out one garbage drive for a new garbage drive and hoping for the best. Personally I'm going with an external Firewire drive, NOT slot-loading!

My two bits worth...

When the disk is popping out like this the reader can't see the disk to ID it.

Have you tried cleaning the optical head? A blast of can'ed air might do the trick (be careful here! you don't want the liquid to come out when doing this and small short blasts are best here). Place the straw in the middle of the slot opening just past the felt baffle level with the drive.

You could also try a CD/DVD head cleaning CD/DVD (has a micro brush) if the air doesn't do the trick before you open the system up. Then try the air again when you can get inside one more time before replacing the drive.