Bad optical drive on iMac?

I have a 20" ~2008 iMac and tried to install the Snow Leopard update (10.6.3) but during the install the computer kept ejecting the disk. I tried playing 2 dvds and a cd and both worked fine with no added scratches. Is my optical drive bad or just a bad install disk?

If other DVDs and CDs work fine with the iMac, it is likely that the issue is a problem with the specific disk you are using.
You can purchase another Snow Leopard install disk from Apple for $19.99 (USA price.)
Best of luck.

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Snow Leopard Install problems on Macbook Pro with bad optical drive

I've tried this (refer to article below) to install Snow Leopard on a Macbook Pro with a bad optical drive, but I am not able to choose a wi-fi network, or install disk after startup. Is there something else I need to do?
To use Remote Install Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server:
Insert the Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server Install Disc into the optical disc drive of the other computer.
If the other computer is a Mac, open /Applications/Utilities/Remote Install Mac OS X. On Windows, choose "Remote Install Mac OS X" from the Install Assistant.
Read the introduction and click Continue.
Choose the install disc you want to use, and click Continue.
Choose a network connection: AirPort, if you are using an AirPort network, or Ethernet, if the other computer is on an Ethernet network and you have an optional Apple USB Ethernet Adapter connecting your MacBook Air or Mac mini to the same network. Click Continue.
Restart your MacBook Air or Mac mini and hold down the Option key as it starts up, until you see a list of available startup disks.
Click Continue in Remote Install Mac OS X.
If you chose AirPort as your network in step 5, on your MacBook Air or Mac mini choose your AirPort network from the pop-up list.
If the network is secure, you will be prompted for a password. You can enter a private network name by choosing the ellipsis (...) and typing the name.
If you chose AirPort as your network in step 5, when you see the AirPort status icon indicating signal strength, click Continue in Remote Install Mac OS X.
You can now reinstall software, reset your password or run Disk Utility using instructions from the User's Guide.

Are you able to connect the two via Firewire cable? If so you can boot the MBP into Target Disk Mode. Then boot the other computer from the OS X installer disc. The installer should detect the hard drive of the MBP as an eligible target destination.
If you have a spare hard drive or at least 10 GBs of usable space on an external drive, then you can create a small 8 GB partition on that drive. Then clone the installer DVD to that partition using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can then boot the MBP from that partition using OPTION boot: Start the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the cloned DVD then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external partition.
Source means the OS X Installer DVD.
Message was edited by: Kappy

Optical drive on iMac at work, barely one year old, won't read CD's....disc utilities shows disc unavailable! Rarely used and out of warranty, what a rip off!! I have been on MACS since the 80's and things are getting more and more difficult

Optical drive on iMac at work, barely one year old, won't read CD's....disc utilities shows disc unavailable! Rarely used and out of warranty, what a rip off!! I have been on MACS since the 80's and things are getting more and more difficult to deal with. Why did it quit after barely being used? Any help from Apple?

It depends on what you mean by "barely one year old". If the iMac is only a couple of days out of warranty, Apple's been known to make exceptions and extend the warranty, though it's by no means guaranteed. If it's several days or more out of warranty, then Apple will fix it, if it's a hardware problem, but the repair won't be free. This is no different now then it would have been with a Mac purchased back in the 80s.
Why the drive failed, if indeed it has, is impossible to say. Could have been a static shock, a weak component that failed when power was applied, or a mechanical fault in one of the tiny parts used in optical drives and hard drives that finally broke.
Regards.

How can I install winxp to bootcamp on imac with bad optical drive?

I have a mid-2007 20" aluminum Intel-based iMac and I'm having trouble getting a clean install of MacOS10.5.8 and Win XP (through Bootcamp) on a new drive.
The problem stems from the fact that I have no internal optical drive. My Superdrive began acting up a while ago (couldn't recognize, read from, or write to DVD). I replaced the drive, but the problem persisted. Calling Apple Support, they determined (guessed?) the problem was the logic board, and, as the machine is out of warranty, isn't worth replacing. No big deal - I've been using an external USB optical drive when needed.
However, my hard drive is beginning to experience issues (SMART Failure), and I want to reinstall everything MacOS, Bootcamp/Win XP on a clean new drive. The problem is that I cant resinstall Win XP to Bootcamp without an internal drive (which seems unlikely to ever work). I've tried creating a bootable USB key with the XP installation files going through the Bootcamp installation process using the WintoFlash/rEFIt method, but to no avail (won't recognize boot from USB).
Is it possible to remove the internal hard drive, boot from MacOS (10.5.8) on an external drive, and connect the optical drive to the sATA port where the internal drive was? Or is there a second sATA port on these logic boards? Or can I somehow connect the USB optical drive in a way that the iMAC thinks it's internal? I'm not afraid of digging into the iMAC (changed HDD and Superdrive already).
Is there anyway to test the pATA connection on my logic board to find out if it's really the problem? If it's not, maybe I can install WinXP on a second Windows formated drive, to take the space of the internal Superdrive.
There must be some good ideas out there somewhere. Barring that, my only other option is to use Parallels and take the performance hit that comes with running a virtual machine. UGH!

Actually, when I followed that link, one of the related links in More Like This was a real find! An actual download of Aperture, albeit a trial, but that would have solved my problem too. I tested it and although it's embeded in a support article, the link to the trial version of Aperture still works.
Thanks! Great info here if you can find it.

Bad Optical Drive Replaced with a New MacBook Black!

Hello,
I just wanted to write and let you all know of my 1st experience buying a Mac computer. I needed a laptop, so I
decided on the MacBook. I saw BH Photo had some 1st generation
Macbooks at a decent price, so I took the plunge and bought one.
When it arrived, I tried loading Adobe's Creative Suite software,
however the optical drive keep rejecting the media. So I made an
appointment with an Apple Genius at our local Apple store. To my
surprise, after the Tech confirmed the drive was not working, he
asked me if it would be OK if he just replaced my whole machine. He
brought out a new machine which upgraded me to the 2nd generation
with a 2ghz duo core 2 processor, a full gig a ram, and a 6x
superdrive. Wow!
Well, when I arrived home, I once again went through the whole
process of setting up the machine. This time when I placed a cd in
the optical drive it made a horrible mechanical noise, like it was
taking a bite out it. I couldn't believe my bad luck.
Today, I took it back to the Apple Store, and again the Tech
confirmed there was something wrong with the drive. I really thought
that they would just replace the drive for me since they had already
upgraded my machine for free. However, the Tech asked me if I would
like the top of the line Black MacBook since I had to return a second
time. I couldn't believe it...I really had liked the looks of the
black MacBook, but could not justify paying nearly $200 just for the
black color.
Well, tonight I'm writing to you on my new MacBook Black laptop.
I've got the entire Creative Suite loaded on it along with Lightroom,
and I'm very happy with the performance thus far.
Apple has the best customer service I have ever dealt with...they
just might have won over a new customer for life!
Judgement of a company should not be solely on the mistakes they make, no company is going to be perfect, to me is a much better scale to see what they do about their mistakes...I love my new MacBook Black!
-Bryan
Salt Lake City, Utah

Awesome, another fellow BlackBook owner.
Coincidentally, I've found Apple's customer service is generally pretty good. I had to exchange my week-old Blackbook b/c of a slight seperation of the screen bezel (next to the iSight). They were really up-front "...this shouldn't be doing this...please have a seat, we'll exchange this for you right away...do you need us to transfer your data?" Wow. Not to rant, but this is a lot different than when we were at Best Buy a year ago and my g/f bought her Vaio (she teaches at a high school that is PC-only, no Mac at all). She uses her old G3 Lombard as a spare and it still runs beautifully.
The Vaio had a blemish on the lid (paint defect on the lid...bubbles) that we brought back the same day. No big deal, just want an exchange. The kid-manager-on-duty told us that it was "within manufacturer's specifications....restocking fee...etc." before even looking at it. We told him it wasn't a pixel, but a paint defect, and he could at least look at it before telling us to "pound sand." After a 10min demand for the store manager, they relented and exchanged the Vaio for us. Her Vaio just had an XP re-install this last weekend but is otherwise in excellent shape.
After our expeirence w/ my Macbook exchange (..."have a seat...transfer data..etc.") she bought herself a new Mac Mini and is anxiously awaiting it to arrive.
Happy Macs to all.
13" Core 2 Black Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.9) 14" Core Duo HP Notebook XP SP2

Changing optical drive in iMac

I keep getting errors when burning CDs in iTunes.
I start suspecting that the optical drive in my 4 year old iMac is either defect or needs updating.
Is is possible to update the optical drive to a newer model?
How much will it cost?
Thank you for your help.
Valther

Any will work, so you can buy the one you most like. Have a look on the Internet to see optical drives, for example, at OWC > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/

Frozen Load Screen and Bad Optical Drive

Last week I was using the Internet to check email. It was very slow and eventually froze up (couldn't force quit or anything). I had to shut down the computer by pressing the power button. I waited a few minutes and turned it back on. Since then I get stuck at the loading screen. It just displays the apple logo, the spinning gear, and also what looks like a scroll bar underneath that.
I have read through some other threads to give me ideas to try such as resetting the RAM and SMC, disk repair, etc. To make matters worse, my optical drive hasn't been working since December. (Basically I stick a disk in about halfway and then it makes a weird noise and spits it back out.) I've been using an external optical drive to fix that problem.
#1. Can I use an external optical drive to boot from an OS X disk?
#2. Is there anything else I can try (aside from what I mentioned above) as far as getting the computer past the frozen load screen?
Thank you for your help!

Hi, heres a link that might help..
http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-system-mac-software/296102-updating-leopard-ex ternal-optical-drive.html
Your issue could be a failing HD....L

ANOTHER bad optical drive

Mac Bk Pro (Leopard) less than 1.5 yrs old. Second drive to fail by cycling repeatedly with no disk in it. Only scratch on it was received when it went in for repair after the original drive died.

My previous Powerbook G4 had optical drive issues over and over (and then the logic board died). 'Twas a lemon. It was my "buy AppleCare" lesson learned the expensive way. At 1.5 years, if you bought AppleCare, you're still covered. Bring the machine in again. If a third drive fails, the lemon law comes into effect and you get a new machine.
If you don't have AppleCare, it's still free to get a quote at the Genius Bar. Let them fix it, or perhaps buy an external. How often do you use the drive?
Michael

The bad optical drive

I have been using my Mac mini for months and I'm very happy with it. But there is one problem in it. The Combo drive is always noisy, OK, I don't really mind. The biggest problem is it can't read some disks properly. Two music CDs that I bought (which are completely legal) always crash the Mac when I try to play them in iTunes. Those Copy Control crap shouldn't have any impact on it. All other disks play well in the drive. I wonder what's the problem. I'm sure it's not the problem of the 2 CDs. They can play well on another PC and a DVD player.
Also I want to ask do I have have to quit some other apps when I import CDs in iTunes? Is the speed brought down by other apps? I was importing a CD and playing a game at the same time, and it felt like I was back at my old PC (all things crashed). Was that too much work for my Mac?
(This is my first post, by the way.)

Those Copy Control crap
shouldn't have any impact on it. All other disks play
well in the drive. I wonder what's the problem. I'm
sure it's not the problem of the 2 CDs. They can play
well on another PC and a DVD player.
Also I want to ask do I have have to quit some other
apps when I import CDs in iTunes? Is the speed
brought down by other apps? I was importing a CD and
playing a game at the same time, and it felt like I
was back at my old PC (all things crashed). Was that
too much work for my Mac?
(This is my first post, by the way.)
Welcome to the discussion group, and your first post here!
It has been widely reported in the past that many copy protection mechanisms used on some CDs do indeed prevent them from being played on various computer systems, and the record labels who have used such schemes have had high levels of complaints from customers as a result. It's that which I suspect caused Sony to use their new form of protection which has rightly been universally condemned as little short of spyware.
Thus Will is right, it would help to know which CDs these are, to be able to work out if there is any copy protection involved that may be causing your problem.
But there are other possible issues too. Macs in general can be very fussy about CD quality, and as a result, CDs with scratches, fingerprints or that are badly 'pressed' can refuse to play or rip to iTunes completely (or in part). You might try cleaning the problem CDs and see whether that helps. There's also a check box in the advanced tab of iTunes preferences, under 'importing' to switch on error correction when importing into iTunes and which can help when ripping CDs that have imperfections. Enabling this feature tends to slow the ripping process somewhat, but it has helped me when importing CDs that otherwise failed.
Importing CDs to iTunes is simply a matter of streaming data, and as such in the Mac mini where the device controllers are less sophisticated than in G5 systems, it is somewhat dependent on what else the system is doing. As a result I would have expected a game being actively played at the time to impact on performance to some degree - though not necessarily greatly. Slow import can also be an indicator of problems with the CD itself. It might be worth trying to import the same CD with no other process running, and see if that is markedly better. If it is, the game was obviously hijacking the processor and hogging the system's data bus. If not, it's the drive or CD at fault.

Bad optical drive? Can't boot from install, loss of memory....help!

I seem to have a series of issues which I noticed today with a drop in hard drive memory. I typically hover around 105 GB and for unexplainable reasons dropped to 76 GB.(I'm getting this number from the bottom of a Finder window) I started to do some exploring (ran Disk Inventory (I couldn't make much sense of it), repaired permissions etc.). Nothing jumped out at me. I decided to do a clean install from my Install dvd (leopard) but the disk won't mount. I get stuck on a grey screen w/ an apple but no spinning gear. Eventually, I get a small folder w/ a scolding frowny face and the the disk is spit out.
I did a Safe Boot and restart. Didn't fix the memory issue OR the inability to re-install. I carefully cleaned the Install dvd. No luck.
I reset the pram.
Then, once I was able to get the Install disk to show up on my desk top but when I click "Install" and the computer restarted - back to the grey screen and the frowny folder.
I then took a home movie DVD-R I had created a while back and the computer spits that out also. It does accept an audio CD.
So I guess I have a few issues here....any thoughts on where my memory/hard drive space may have gone? And any thoughts on what's up with not being able to read DVD's? I have a dvd project due on Saturday of this week....UGH.
Thanks in advance.....Karen

when you saying "install" leopard again.. you booted to the disk and on the screen where it asks you to "select a destination" make sure you click options and then choose from there.

Can I ask for a replace meant of iMac since yjere is a failure of one part every month. Last month lcd replied now optical drive.

Can I ask for a replace meant of iMac since yjere is a failure of one part every month. Last month lcd replied now optical drive.
Imac 27".
i do not like the idea of repairing every month.
Feel the imacs supplied to India are sub standard ones

Folks have reported that the Apple policy is three major component failures and the Mac is replaced. For the first two the Mac is repaired. Apple would not risk alienating its customers from one of the most populated nations in the world, so its time to stop the "discriminating against the poor Indians and selling us sub-standard Macs" routine. Occasionally the universe aligns just right for there to be a Mac lemon. Folks in every country have experienced lemons. It is the hazard of manufacturing millions of Macs with even more millions of parts, all produced by different parts suppliers. And it is why the manufacturer's warranty exists.
Speak to the vender about a replacement. If necessary call Apple Care and request that your warranty service call be escalated to Customer Relations. Politely, but firmly, explain the situation and stand your ground that the solution to make you a happy customer is to have the Mac replaced. Don't make threats, mention lawyers or claim that Apple discriminates against Indians. If you do, you will have lost your case and Apple will then work with you from a distance and follow it policies and procedures to the letter, regardless of whether it makes you happy.

Burn in itunes using external optical drive imac 2009

My Matsushita optical drive (2009 iMac) no longer works. Is there an external optical drive that I can purchase for burning music CD's?. I already have Maverick, but I believe the operating system is not the problem. The external optical drive has to be compatible with hardware that already has an internal (non-functioning) drive.

I have a PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-XD09.
It's worked on systems with or without optical drives for me since 2009.
It was $69 at Bestbuy.
It has a USB/Power combo cable that uses TWO USB ports, but I got a 5v AC adapter for $4.99 and now it only needs one USB port to function. I've burned with it under 10.8.4, 10.8.5 and 10.9.0.
They've upgraded it since I got mine (Link here) so it can burn Blu-Ray now

How do I remove the display glass on an imac7.1 to replace the optical drive?

I have a 2007 iMac 24inch which has a bad optical drive. How do I remove the display glass to get to the optical drive?

Replacing anything in the newer designed iMacs is not a job for someone inexperienced or a novice.
If you don't like the idea of having to use an extrernal optical drive, It might be best to take your iMac to an Apple store or authorized Apple repair center for repair/replacement.
If you damage anything else while trying to do this replacement yourself, it will cost you even more cash to repair at a repair center later.

Restore Snow Leopard From time Machine without an Optical drive

I have a couple of year old Macbook with a bad optical drive.
I want to pull the hard drive out of the Macbook and replace it with the original drive that came with the machine. The problem is that the original drive has OSX Leopard and I would like to get snow leopard on it. I have a good time machine backup that i could use, but i do not know how to restore the entire disk without using the OSX install DVD.
Is there anyway that i can do a time machine recovery without using the optical drive.
Thanks.

In order to restore Snow Leopard to that drive, it will need to be formatted using Disk Utility and I can't think of a way to do that without the optical drive unless you use a different Mac or an external optical drive.

Optical Drive/slot loading drive not recognized by imac G5. HELP US!!!!!

We have an imac G5 that is maybe 14 months old. I know for a fact that the slot loading optical drive on the side has been used for three things in the entire time we've owned it. That's THREE TIMES in 14 months and now it's as if the drive doesn't exist on the computer. I've gone into the system profiler, it says there is no drive, try to put in a cd, no resistance, no noise and it doesn't even try to suck in any disc. Has anyone else experienced this? Have you figured out what to do? I can replace the drive myself, it's not hard but can someone recommend a good quality drive cause I'm not paying through the nose for parts from apple only to have them crap out on me.
I feel ripped off!

We have 3 right now having problems. 1 just went into the ITech store to have a CD removed. 1 will not even accept a CD anymore and the other just makes awful noises and scratches the CD. These have been minimally used also. They said the Optical Drive is bad on the 1st one. Of course, we are 1 month past our warranty! I think Apple should be backing this but when I called about it they didn't want to help me. Even saying I had not registered them even though I had documentation from them saying I had. I know the feeling of being ripped off. Our company has purchased 20 of these in the last 1 1/2 years. You think we would get a little bit of help from Apple being we have purchased so many of their products in the last 20 years.

Bad optical drive on iMac?

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