Involuntary Reboot Log #16
Very similar to the problem I saw back at the start of this month: after installing a preview release of a certain operating system the DVD appeared as being mounted on the Desktop but both the Finder and the Terminal reported it to have no contents at all. I didn’t try ejecting the disk but instead went straight to the System Profiler application, which beachballed for a long time before telling me that no optical drives were connected to the machine. The putatively non-existent disk burner then spat out the disc without being asked to, accompanied by a horrible screeching sound.
By this time other apps had started to beachball or become intolerably slow. No apps would finish launching, so I tried to restart and became stuck looking at an empty desktop for 10 or 15 minutes. Resignedly performed the one-finger salute (hard reset with power switch).
I did the usual Disk First Aid drill on my other (production volume). Won’t bother doing it on this (development) one as I suspect this won’t be a very long-lived install. Will see if the burner comes back to life when running the production OS.