Boot up/Keyboard/DVD Drive Issues & Questions

I thought I'd try this before giving up completely on this iMac. It's a 20" Early 2006 iMac that will not boot past the gray screen, Apple icon and rotating circle.
Here's the challenge - this iMac also does not recognize keyboard input from an Apple keyboard but will respond to an old Dell USB keyboard.
Questions
First the installation (retail Tiger) DVD is not recognized when I hold the Option (alt) key down while booting, only the hard drive is listed. Does this mean that the DVD drive is not functioning?
I managed to reset SMC which did nothing to get the DVD drive recognized and now the fans are spinning full speed as well as the computer not booting.
I would love to try resetting PRAM, how does one do that without a "Command" key? I should mention that I replaced the battery when I pulled the hard drive out to rescue the data on it. Would that have reset PRAM?
Is it possible to boot directly from an external USB CD/DVD drive, and thus be able to use Disk Utilities to attempt a repair or reinstall?
Any assistance is much appreciated!
Peace,
Gail
Message was edited by: Gail - Added more info

Kappy wrote:
Could mean the optical drive is malfunctioning or that you have a defective disc. Try cleaning the disc on both surfaces as well as checking for scratches or defects.
Both the retail Tiger disc and the original OS X Installer Disc One are in perfect condition (at least to the naked eye). Neither will boot from the drive.
How to run hardware diagnostics for an Intel Mac
Boot from your original OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. After the chime press and hold down the "D" key until the diagnostic screen appears. Run the extended tests for a minimum of two or three hours. If any error messages appear note them down as you will need to report them to the service tech when you take the computer in for repair.
Some "common" error indicators:
SNS - sensor error
MEM - memory error
HDD - hard disk drive error
MOT - fan error
I would very much like to do this but can't get the discs to boot from the DVD drive.
In order to reset the PRAM you need to restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION-P-R keys until you hear three additional chimes. See Reset PRAM and NVRAM.
I do not have a COMMAND key on the only keyboard I have on hand that works on this iMac. What would be another key combination or an equivalent for a non-Apple keyboard?
Is it possible to boot directly from an external USB CD/DVD drive, and thus be able to use Disk Utilities to attempt a repair or reinstall?
Yes, you can boot from a USB or FireWire external hard drive or optical drive.
This is the route I will probably take since apparently the optical drive is toast.
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the assistance!
Peace,
Gail

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Booting from CD/DVD drive on HP Pavilion 17-e158sm Notebook PC

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Hope my english is good enought.

Have you checked BIOS to see if Secure Boot is enabled? IF so disable it. Enable Legacy .Clear all secure boot keys.
Btw.When you installed Windows 7 did you boot from the dvd?
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**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

All users GONE except for "Other"...and CANNOT boot from External DVD drive

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Thanks, but no luck so far.
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CD-ROM error on boot after replacing DVD drive -Qosmio F20-574

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Hello
your Liteon DS-8A1P (CX17) currently in SLAVE or CABLE SELECT Mode
you must make it as MASTER
Toshiba accepts drives in MASTER settings only
you can not make it by jumper , because there is no jumper inside the drive
you can make it master by:
1-firmware update to the drive to make it MASTER.
2-by soldring pin 47 to pin 45 inside the drive (not recomended).

ITunes for 64bit Windows 7 Driver/CD/DVD/Drive Issues-

Hi There
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That's good that it is in device manager, but what about in Computer with the rest of the drivers?
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I still have Cd/DVD drive issues

The CD is ejected after a short while and never mounted. I have cleaned the optics of the CD drive and reset my PRAM.
Has anybody discovered a complete solution for this problem.

That's good that it is in device manager, but what about in Computer with the rest of the drivers?
Also, are the drives listed in Computer and device manager or just device manager?
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It could be that the lens has dust buildup preventing it from working properly. They do make CD cleaning kits that have a special CD designed to clean the laser as it passes over the lens. If you happen to have one of these, or access to one, I recommend trying this step to make sure it isn't as simple as dust buildup interfering with the laser.
It could also be hardware failure, but I would like to try a few other steps before coming to that conclusion.
It may be worth reviewing this document as it covers a lot of the most common issues behind DVD drive issues. Feel free to skip any steps you have already tried.
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Ibook g3 M2453 boot from external DVD drive

Hi, I'm Simon from Germany.
I have an iBook M2453 Mac OS X and a lot of dvds.
But the iBook has no DVD drive. So I bought an external DVD drive. But no matter what I do during boot (press the C key or alt)
I can not boot from external DVD drive.
Please help me
Thank you.
Simon.
PS: I have translated the text using Google translate

Hi Simon,
the iBook is able to boot from USB, but this is not expected behaviour and not supported by Apple.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20554
There are some external enclosures that do the trick.
But only when you press ALT after Power on. (Select a startup volume via the Startup Manager)
External enclosures with Prolific PL-3507 chipset (Firewire/USB Combo)
You will find them on Ebay Germany
I have a Delock IDE>USB 2.0 enclosure for 2,5" HDs
http://www.delock.com/produkte/gruppen/Geh%C3%A4use/Delock_25_external_enclosure _USB20_42365.html?setLanguage=EN
that works also.
Hallo Simon,
das läuft nur mit einigen wenigen externen Gehäusen. Such auf Ebay nach "PL-3507"
und nimm eins mit Firewire und USB Anschlüssen.
Ein Festplattengehäuse von Delock für 2,5" Festplatten ging auch ( Link oben)
Ein Boot ist nur möglich wenn du die ALT Taste nach dem Einschalten drückst und dann über den Startup manager dein Boot volume auswählst.

Satellite C655D-S5303 will not boot from cd/dvd drive

I have already set the boot order in the BIOS to boot from cd/dvd drive first and it still goes straight to the HDD and starts Windows 7. I searched for this problem and found some people saying to switch it to CSM boot or disable secure boot but none of these options are available in the BIOS. I have it set to normal boot instead of fast so thats not the problem. Can anyone help me here? I am trying to reformat and reinstall Windows 7. I know the Windows 7 installation disk I have is good because I have used it in another computer and the cd/dvd drive works fine. I just can't get it to boot from the cd/dvd drive before the HDD.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Satellite C655D-S5303
Downloads here.
Try setting the HDD to lowest boot priority. See Dave's solution in this message.
It's certainly easier to restore the hard disk to its original out-of-the-box contents using Toshiba recovery media. All the drivers and utilities are preinstalled in the proper order. Windows is preactivated.
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Satellite/Satellite Pro C600 Series User’s Guide
If you want Windows 7 Professional, upgrading takes only minutes.
Upgrade to another edition of Windows 7 by using Windows Anytime Upgrade
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Satellite C655D-S5303 will not boot from cd/dvd drive

I have already set the boot order in the BIOS to boot from cd/dvd drive first and it still goes straight to the HDD and starts Windows 7. I searched for this problem and found some people saying to switch it to CSM boot or disable secure boot but none of these options are available in the BIOS. I have it set to normal boot instead of fast so thats not the problem. Can anyone help me here? I am trying to reformat and reinstall Windows 7. I know the Windows 7 installation disk I have is good because I have used it in another computer and the cd/dvd drive works fine. I just can't get it to boot from the cd/dvd drive before the HDD.

Satellite C655D-S5303
Downloads here.
Try setting the HDD to lowest boot priority. See Dave's solution in this message.
It's certainly easier to restore the hard disk to its original out-of-the-box contents using Toshiba recovery media. All the drivers and utilities are preinstalled in the proper order. Windows is preactivated.
If you failed to burn recovery discs, you can obtain recovery media from Toshiba. Scroll down to Get Recovery Media here
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Satellite/Satellite Pro C600 Series User’s Guide
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Any solution to DVD drive issue post Lion install yet?

Any solution to DVD drive issue post Lion install yet?

Since installing Lion no DVDs are being read by the superdrive, this is a problem that has been highlighted by quite a lot of people.
CDs are being read fine.
After inserting the DVD there is some noise, sounds like it is trying to pickup the DVD then spits it back out.
Previous posts from other people:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/245917-heads-up-lion-supe rdrive-fake-glitch-possibly.html
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Not booting from DVD drive | Flashing Question mark and face folder S

Hey there! I am hoping one of you folks can help.
I noticed my iMac running really slow.
I could not find my OS disks, so I bought OS X Leopard
When I tried to boot from DVD it would flash the question/face folder for about 30 seconds then reboot normal. (I was able to install the OS. Just can't boot from the disk in order to run disk utility)
Time got away from me and now my system is REALLY slow...
I went and bought Disk Warrior
Same issue, only my drive spits out that disk. (I can run and burn other disks)
I won't discuss my failed attempts at getting help from the Apple store and by having the geniuses (not) call me. I would rather not pay an arm and a leg to have an approved repair center run the disk utility for me. I've already spent $169 on the OS and $100 on Disk Warrior... PLEASE HELP

Hey,
No, I'm not running Snow Leopard. Running Leopard. 10.5.8
I'm guessing the problem is either with my computer itself, or perhaps the DVD drive. Hard to tell. Maybe even something corrupt in my software?
My problem is:
I desperately need to run a disk utility of some sort, however am not able to make my computer use my OS disk or Disk warrior as a startup disk (either by holding down C, or by assigning it in System Utilities.)
I was hoping someone might have a tip, or trick to get my machine to use one of these disks as the startup disk.
Thanks!

DVD drive issue and permissions repair

Forgive me if I'm combining two issues in this posting. If they are not related I can separate them out.
I don't know if my drive is going, but I have a DVD for a tv show that I wanted to watch on my Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard (latest patches). For a while now I've had to keep reinserting the disc because it's not registering. I put it in, and can hear mechanisms, then it spits it back out.
I watched one disc, ejected it then tried to play another and it just would not load.
I thought of checking disk permissions, thinking maybe the OS had some permissions problems that may be preventing it from reliably reading the disc. The disk utility reported a number of permissions errors and owner errors, so I repaired the permissions and it reported that it was completed successfully. I thought I'd run the verify permissions again, just to make sure the errors had really been repaired, and they're still there - some of them were gone, but there were others reported. I ran the repair and verify a number of times now and nothing's changed.
My questions:
1. Could the problem I'm seeing with my DVD drive be related to permissions of some of the system files?
2. Do I have anything to worry about with the disk permissions not appearing to be repaired?
3. Would I gain anything by booting to install media and running the verify and repair from there?
Thanks much in advance!

Could the problem I'm seeing with my DVD drive be related to permissions of some of the system files?
If you've repaired permissions, and you still have the problem, then the answer is no.
Do I have anything to worry about with the disk permissions not appearing to be repaired?
Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore
Would I gain anything by booting to install media and running the verify and repair from there?
No.

Hyper-V 2012 R2 Gen 2 VM failed to boot from SCSI DVD drive using ISO image file

Hello:
I'm having a problem trying to install Windows 8.1 Professional on a new Gen 2 VM. I created a new Gen 2 VM using Hyper-V Manager running on Windows Server 2012 R2 and then told it to boot off DVD drive which pionts to the ISO file that I copied to the E:
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Or is there a bug with the Hyper-V SCSI controller that makes it unable to boot from ISOs properly?
-JP

Hi JP,
In addition , please try :
1. copy the ISO to an not shared local folder or drive
2. uncheck the "enable secure boot" in VM settings .
If the issue still persists , maybe you can try to down load a new ISO file then try to boot again .
Hope it helps
Best Regards
Elton Ji
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Weird broken DVD drive issue

+(crossposted from here, this forum seems to get much more traffic.)+
Hi.
A couple of weeks ago, my Macbook's DVD drive stopped working. It won't load discs (physically) at all. This is not a software issue, it won't load under Windows or external boots either.
I figure the drive is dead, and I'm not that broken up about it… I almost never use it.
However, there are two interesting side points, which aren't very common judging by the lack of Google results:
• Ever since I got my Macbook, the drive made a sort of 'spinning' sound every time the empty drive was powered up, i.e. on waking from sleep or starting/rebooting, the drive would make a quick 'back and forth' noise, which none of my friends' Macbooks made. This only happened when the drive was empty; it was silent when a disc was loaded. My drive is a *HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N* according to System Profiler. I never did check whether my friends' drives were identical, although one friend did have the exact same model of Macbook. For all I know, this is entirely common with my drive.
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So… is there any chance my drive is not dead? Does the fact that it always made strange noises have anything to do with it? And how does the phantom typing figure in? Is there a way to see what characters the system if dumping into my password box?
Thanks for any help. Again, I'm not worried about it, more curious. I'm also well out of warranty.

I can't speak to the specifics of your situation, hudgie, but I can tell you that the SuperDrive on my first MacBook conked out and had to be replaced. Fortunately, it was still under AppleCare. The symptom my MacBook presented was that it would not mount CDs. It would accept them and then spit them right back out. Curiously, it played DVDs just fine. This was a progressive failure. At first, I could rotate the CD and have it accepted. Then I would have to fiddle with it longer in order to get it to accept the CD. And, finally, it would not accept a CD at all. I did try a cleaning disc on the drive, without success. If you haven't tried a cleaning disc, I would suggest trying that, especially since you are out of warranty anyway.
Good luck!

MacBookPro Maverick 10.9.3 DVD Drive issues

Hi,
I have a MacBook Pro and just downloaded OS X Maverick 10.9.3. Now I am unable to insert CDs and when I try to open my DVD player it says "error no valid DVD drive could be found". Any suggestions?

Hey mjg1983,
Thanks for the question. The following resource provides relevant troubleshooting for your issue, including resetting the SMC:
Apple Computers: Troubleshooting the slot-loading SuperDrive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Thanks,
Matt M.

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