I am working on a computer that I have stuffed into an old Xbox 360. The problem i have is that the computer is using a slimline laptop optical drive. I know I can instruct the drive to eject from within the OS but I would like the ability to eject the disk before boot. Problem is that due to the "stock" look I am trying to maintain, the eject button is not accessible. I know its possible to wire in an external button in, But I have already destroyed a couple of drives in attempt and I would rather do this programmatically over SATA if I could.
So what I am thinking is that I would like to use something like a Auduino Nano to tap into the SATA cable and issue the eject command. So my question is, Could this be as simple as it sounds? Have the Auduino monitor a pin for activity and if so send the command to the optical drive by tapping into the Sata cable that the drive uses to communicate with the PC?
I would love to see any suggestions on how to re-route the "eject button" without opening the optical drive. I thought I would ask here to see what I would be getting myself into (if its even worth doing) before I start buying hardware