From the I can NOT believe it department, news is that many consumers who purchased the new iMacs, are getting scratched CDs from the internal factory drive. Seems that the drive exhibits 4 small scartches on the disk upon eject. Seems that little Snow Leopard trapped inside wants to get out! Apple techs have been said to be rude, and indicate that people need to learn how to insert and remove CDs from their drives. Me thinks it is a design flaw with the drive or opening slot, being too thin. The tolerances are tight. Lets hope Apple decides to correct this, versus removing the CD drive all together, which seems to be their plan for the Mac Mini, and Macbook, ala Macbook Air.
http://imac.squeaked.com/disc_scratching.php
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2105438&tstart=0
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=836352
Some owners have come up with makeshift solutions, to place tape around the slot to eliminate the scratches, but I am not sold on it being the slot itself, it could be the actual drive inside. Apple confirms they will replace the drive. And have done so for many, to no avail. Others have decided to install an external CD drive with a tray! This could be eliminated if the iMac had a tray CD device, none of my PCs have ever scratched my CDs over the last 10 years.
