Both Superdrives Not responding Then Not Being Recognized...

Question

So a few days ago both of my Superdrives started making a noise like they were trying to open. It would happen periodically but not too frequently to raise a red flag immediately. Then over the weekend the drives started opening and closing all on their own. I kind of became worried at that, but they still read and wrote media so it was OK. Yesterday I was trying to build and format a project on DVDSP and as soon as it prompted me to insert the media I got the pinwheel of death and all elements of DVDSP and Compressor became unresponsive in the Activity Monitor. Now I can't even open my Superdrives and the little eject icon in the top right says "No Drives".
This is a major problem and I'm assuming I will have to take it to the Apple Store for repair, but I just wanted to see if anyone has ever had similar symptoms and what their outcome was. I'm not creating or making anything out of the ordinary that I haven't done many many times before so I have no idea what's going on, but I assume it's a drive issue and not a DVDSP issue.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi kdengs ..
Can you explain further what you mean by Cable Select (CS)?
Sure. When using two DVD Drives together, one of them must be set to Master and the other one set to Slave. Each Drive has a jumper on the back that lets you select Master, Slave or Cable Select. The factory sets the jumper to Cable Select. This makes it easy for you to add another DVD Drive and will default to Slave. A No brainer. Just Plug & Play.
But what if you just got a better DVD Drive and you want to make it the Master, then the Cable Connections are as important as the jumpers and must match. Just remember that the connector at the end or top is the Master Connection and must be plugged into the Drive set as Master. The other, middle connector is the Slave.
When installing a second CD/DVD Drive set the jumper to Slave and plug it into the center Cable Connection. Leave the original CD/DVD Drive set Cable Select so that the end connection will keep it as a Master.
So I think you should open the Mac and slide out the CD/DVD Drive Bay just far enough to see how the jumpers are set and which Drive is plugged into the Center Connector (should be the bottom one). If both Drives jumpers are set to Cable Select then just change the bottom one to Slave by moving it from the center pins to the next pins to your right. If they are set to Master/Slave, then move the jumper on the master to Cable Select (center pins).
Good Luck.
Buzz