Mac CDROM opens at boot up?!?

This might be a problem with the keyboard or mouse - if the eject key or mouse button are seen as being permanently held down, the machine would certainly exhibit this behaviour (also, the eject key doesn't "repeat" like other keys [at least on my machine]). Shut down, unplug both keyboard and mouse and startup again - if the problem goes away, you know it's some sort of problem with the keyboard or mouse, and you can eliminate each one in turn.

If unplugging the keyboard and mouse doesn't fix it, check for whether the CD drive's eject button is stuck in the "pressed" position - you might need to pop open the door which coveres the CD tray to check on that button.

You might also like to reset the PRAM by holding down Option-Command-P-R while starting up the machine (hold them down until you hear the startup chime the second time). That may or may not help, too.

Let us know whether any of that help.

Regards

Sean

I don't know how helpful this is, but i opened the shell and typed "uname -a" to show what sort of a machine this is and here's the info:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.6.0 root:xnu-792.6.70.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc

I checked for the CDROM eject button and this desktop tower does not have any buttons at all. Perhaps they are hidden behind the case, i'll check. Also, tried shutting down, unplugging the keyboard and the mouse and starting up again. Still opens the CDROM... I'm going to try resetting the PRAM and will let you know how that's going...

Thank you so much for your help!!! :)

Tried shutting down and pressing OPTION - COMMAND (which is the same as APPLE button) - P - R at boot up, still no luck, CDROM keeps popping open. I have to also note that while the machine is running, if i push the CDROM drive closed, it still pops out in about 7 to 9 seconds. Do you think some program running in the background might be fooling with it? I can post my "ps -All" log here if need be. Thanks

Don't think a program is doing it as it's happening immediately on startup - I think it's more likely to be a dodgy eject button on the front of the drive unit.

Regards

Sean

This is a common problem and is usually caused by an out of date driver for a third party USB device. Try disconnecting all third party USB devices and see if the problem persists.

Macassist, my powerpc does not have any eject buttons on the front of the tower. Do you think the buttons are still there, but they are hidden behind the front panel?!
Strung, i do have several USB devises connected to this machine. There's a LaCie firewire external DVDROM. I tried unplugging everything, i.e. USB plus firewire devices and restarting the machine, nothing helps, the CDROM still pops open every time the machine starts and then every time i push the CDROM back in, still pops open in about 8 seconds... This is just so weird. Do you think the CDROM could be broken, or something could be on the lasers path on the inside?
-=G=-

Sorry, i didn't respond to this earlier. It seemed that the cause was the DVDRom button that was stuck...
Thanks for helping!!!
-=G=-