CD Drive = Dead?

I was going to upload a CD onto iTunes and I put the cd in, and it did nothing but spit it back out, and it spazed out like it was trying to eject something that wasnt coming out. Now it wont even take any form of a CD and im afraid i have killed it....any and all info is apprecaited!!!

Mines does the same, and no one has given me a suggestion yet

Similar Messages

How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?

I have a seagte back up plus. I pulled my hard drive out without ejecting it and now finder dosn't find it but I see it in disk utility (although I cant repair permissions) How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?
Thank you so much for any help

In Disk Utility you need to see a volume or partition in addition to the drive.
If all you see is the drive, then when you ejected it you proably corrupted the volume or partition on the drive.
If that is true then your chances of getting anything back are slim at best.
About the only thing I know that might work not is to send the disk out to a service for recovery. This is going to cost like $$$$.
Is the data worth that much?
Allan

Hard Drive Dead? Help!

Hi, so I recently bought an enclosure for my old HD that died out on me, I suppose? My mac was asleep, then I pressed any button on the computer to wake it up, then I clicked on Mail right away, and it froze for a while.. so I held the power down to restart it. When it restarted, it gave me a white screen with a folder with a question mark on it. I was told my HD was bad. So I changed it, now my mac is up and running. BUT... i need my old files from my old HD. I bought an enclosure, plugged and played.. nothing comes up. How can I get my old files? Please help!!!!

This one has an outside chance of working. But if it doesn't work, _be warned_, might make the data completely unrecoverable through a professional data rescue service. I've only heard about this and never done it myself. You put it in the freezer. Not sure why this is supposed to work, but it might.
_Much safer to try Data Rescue first. I would try this only as a last resort._
For others, try googling hard drive dead freezer and see what you think.
http://hacknmod.com/hack/how-to-recover-dead-hard-drive-data/
I can tell you from experience that it in fact DOES work…most of the time. I have managed to recover data 3 times from dead drives, and have also not managed to recover data about the same amount of time. So, it is fair to say that for me, it worked 50% of the time.
I placed the drive in two zip lock bags expelling as much as air as possible before zip locking both bags. I left it in the freezer for approx. 12 hours with no luck, but after freezing it for extended periods of time, it worked like a charm. It is also important to note that this is generally a one shot deal, if it works, you’re in luck, but you must get as much data as possible from the drive because once it dies, it is rare that you will gain access a second time.
The 3 times I did manage to get the data back, I exhumed only the data that I absolutely required. In other words, only the data I created or files that I placed on the drive.
I too, found it hard to believe when I first heard it, but after losing 3 years of tax returns I HAD to try it. Fortunately for me, it worked like a charm.

Is Hard Drive Dead???

Hello,
Thanks for anyone that posts and helps me out here. These forums help alot.
I have iMac G5 Isight (model before intel) 200GB HD 2.5GB Ram.
Stopped working and saw blue screen with question mark the other day. uh oh.
Attempted restart -> not solved
attempted safe mode -> didnt work just shut down
attempted single user mode (fsck) -> did not work (catalog file I/O error invalid node structure)
attempted Disk Utilities off startup disk -> not work (failure on exit error keys out of order)
sighed.
bought Disk Warrior (as this helped others w similar issues)
Attempted DW (fingers crossed) -> message said error "speed reduced by disk malfunction" also could not replace original directory b/c of disk malfunction. Comparison could not be performed and recommended backup and to look at preview.
everything critical is backed up. no problem.
everything non critical I dont care about.
So now, the question is...
Is my hard drive dead?
If so, should I reformat it or is it "permanently wounded" and will have PTSD and cause further problems down the road.
Or, should I bite the bullet and get a brand new Hard Drive??
thanks so much !!!!
mike

Ok.
now that I have some time going to do erase and install.
I suppose info is on the apple support website for the exact steps.
I remember reading somewhere to do settings all to zero?
I was running Tiger latest version.
I have a brand new Leopard disks here that I was going to upgrade to before all this happened.
Should I just boot off the new Leopard disks?
Or
Should I boot off Tiger and then upgrade everything afterwards?
thanks again

Folder with ? at startup - is my hard drive dead?

At startup I got a folder with a question mark.
I started up from MacOS 10.5 DVD, opened disk utility and my hard drive was not shown in the available volumes.
In System Profiler, under serial-ATA, it says "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices.
Tried to reset the PRAM, it did't help.
Is my hard drive dead, or is there something else for me to try?

sorry to say but yes your hard drive died....it has just happened to me last week....18mth white macbook. I hope you have everything back up....(I had just got a external hard drive and was going to back up the day it died...sods law!)
Took it to the Apple store and they replaced the drive....fantastic service...got it back in a day.
so lesson to all...back up.

Gray folder with question mark-- is my hard drive dead?

I have a white 13 inch MacBook that is about 3 years old and runs on Mac OS X 10.4 (I believe). In the past year, it has been running more and more slowly and programs keep freezing. I was going to ask for more RAM for Christmas, but decided to try a few maintenance steps first. I ran a VirusScan this morning (using McAfee), and when I came back into the room, my computer had frozen past all help. I powered it off with the power button, and now, when I try to start it, a gray screen appears with a question mark. I have tried some of the support steps listed to get it working again such as trying a safe boot (didn't work) and resetting my PRAM (didn't work). Is my hard drive dead? Is there any way I can get my files off the computer? I haven't backed up in about 3 months, and I am very upset because I have a lot of important papers and photos on my HD.
Thank you..

Hi corimazz and welcome to Apple Discussions!
It is possible that your hard drive has kicked the bucket, but the folder with the question mark just shows that the computer cannot find a valid system when it starts up. There are a number of possible reasons for this.
Do you have the 10.4 install disk? If so, insert it into the optical disk drive, restart the computer and hold down the C key during startup. Once the computer is booted to the install DVD, select your primary language, then look for the utilities menu and from it select "Disk Utility".
In the Disk Utility, you should see a list of available disks, which we hope will include your hard drive. If the hard drive does not appear in the list, it is dead. If it does show up, select it and click the "Repair Disk" button to see if the problem is being caused by directory damage that can be repaired.
If the drive is truly dead, you are going to have to decide how much the data from the last three months is worth to you. There are companies that have quite good records of recovering data from even very badly damaged hard drives (sunk in rivers, burned in fires, etc) but they are not cheap.
In the USA some data recovery options include:
DriveSavers.com - 800-440-1904
www.ontrack.com - 800-872-2599
www.lazarus.com - 800-341-3282
Once you have the drive out (it's a simple process to remove) it can be replaced with a new one.
I hate to say it, but keeping backups of important files is vital to safe computing. Both the Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems make this a much easier process using the "Time Machine" application.
Best of luck.

Disk drive dead?

I have a DVD RW DW-Q28A drive in my now 3 year old G5. When I insert media regardless of what it is it doesnt do anything, no response at all. It seems dead, is there anything I can do to test it up before I replace it?

You are going through a problem that many of us have had here -- so quickly, you are not alone.
When it happened to me -- I read through ever thread here. Some people offered advice -- which, I tried it all (except Step 7 - which was suggested after I bought a new drive.)
Here is what was given and I hope it helps. If it doesn't then I strongly suggest a new drive - and it's only 43 bucks. (Quite a difference from my original CD writer - which was $2,700 back then...)
If you read the other threads about this "SuperDrive" you will see there are some things you can do before you call the drive dead.
You could
1) zap the perimeters
Re: Superdrive gave up the ghost -- where to start?
Posted: Oct 26, 2006 11:32 AM in response to: dçøyan
From: Sherry Johnson
Frst, boot to open firmware holding apple-option-o-f and then type in the following commands--
reset-nvram (hit return)
set-defaults (hit return)
reset-all (hit retur
2) Rewrite the Permissions through Disk Utility
Can't find the original post for this- but guarantee it was one of the suggestions given
3) Download PatchBurn - courtesy of Michael McMann1
http://www.patchburn.de/download.html
4) Change Your Media - courtesy of Sue DIllini
May I suggest that you use Verbatim DVD-R at 4x or slower to burn.
Read these:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86130
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151900
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302925
4) Try using it through a different program - like Toast
several different posts - hard to say who gets the credit...
5) My personal favorite - (also courtesy of Sherry Johnson) remove all electrical everything from the computer and open it up. Remove fan and see little silver square (on the bottom of the motherboard) it has a little white circle button - press and hold for a full second - it's called resetting the motherboard.
6) Let Apple know (courtesy of Sue Dillini)
Tell them about it here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
7) This from Steppy of Boston
Next I discovered that the cd would mount when I logged in as a different user. I took a look in my user/library/preferences and removed several files related to CD and DVD. Voila all is well! Too bad I didn't remove one at a time to isolate the issue.
8) and after you've tried all these "helpful" hints - Buy a new one.
Courtesy of Steve Boultbee
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/
and installation instructions are here: (but he lets you know they forgot to tell you to remove the faceplate first.) http://www.apple.com/support/powermac/doityourself/storage.html

Stuck: Need Disk repair but DVD drive dead and only have USB 1

[1 Ghz flat-panel iMac with USB 1 ports (no USB 2) and also Firewire 400]
I noticed a strange discrepancy (small but concerning) between the size of a folder on hard drive (folder of all mp3's with no subfolders) and the backup of the same folder on a mounted thumb drive.
(The size difference was not due to any invisible .DS_Store files and both folders are displayed in List view format.)
Disk Utility reports three things:
1. Incorrect number of thread records
2. Volume Bit Map needs minor repair
3. Checking volume information.
Volume free block count",0) [I might have mangled this line]
(It should be 13438611 instead of 13437937)
Here is the GOOD (but these are useless as explained under the "Bad"):
- I have a Tiger 10.4 boot DVD for a repair ==>but see below
- I also have a Disk Warrior disk (never used)
Here is the BAD:
- My built-in optical drive [Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105] is -- I now discover - defunct and DEAD - it does not run the Tiger Boot DVD (in pristine shape).
- I bought an external SuperDrive (unopened) but I believe no boot from USB 1 is possible in PowerPC so a SuperDrive with USB 1 is useless.
Questions:
1.) Is there any way to boot from some external source (optical drive is DEAD) to run Disk Utility and/or Disk Warrior? -- I see none in this case! (gulp).
2.) More importantly (and this is my fundamental concern): Do the three Disk Utility hard drive issues constitute any direct threat to the integrity of my files?
I have almost everything backed up to duplicate thumb drives over these many months as standard practice.
Are these Disk Utility errors fully isolated to hard drive directory-keeping...or do these directory damage errors pose the possibility of mangling or harming my files or their metadata (filesize, etc.).
Put another way, when files are backed-up from a hard drive under the Disk Utility reports above, do they remain unharmed and undamaged by the situations reported by Disk Utility?
Thanks,
Bill

Jeff and Michael,
Thank you both for your generous and thoughtful input.
Michael: As I slept on it overnight, the exact same idea occurred to me of trying a Target Mode to the iMac from my Lion MacbookPro (I have it but stupidly have yet to use it much!).
I did buy a Firewire 800 (MBP) to Firewire 400 (iMac) adapter cable a few months ago!
CONCERN: Would there be potential compatibility issues or risks in running Lion 10.7's Disk Utility against the hard drive of the old OSX 10.4 iMac in Target Disk Mode?
==> Assuming an "it's ok" answer to the Target Disk question, would the majority of users agree that the Target Disk Mode would be more prudent than running:
fsck -fy in Single User Mode
I have never done fsck -fy before especially because I was under the impression there were issues with Journaled drived but from what I have read today...it looks ok to do)
Jeff: Can't thank you enough for the reference to the OTW DVD drive. I might first invest $10 in one of those DVD lens cleaner disks that I've read about. It's probably not the issue or else why would the drive read commercial Music cds perfectly well!
Thanks,
Bilil

CD/DVD Drive Dead

Hey everyone,
My CD/DVD Drive is dead. Trying to reinstall the OS 10.6.
My Drive is dead, takes the disk, makes lots of grinding, and does nothing but spit it out. May have recognized it once out of 20 times, but failed during the install.
I thought about using the Remote Install OSX like you would for a MacBook Air, but it seems that the Mini doesn't have the options for WiFi or network when booting holding option on the Mini so that seems to be out.
Anyone have any experience with this? I was thinking that I could use an External USB DVD Drive to install the OS. Does anyone know if that would work?

The drive itself seems to be dead, Doesn't read any CD / DVD's
I haven't tried using a Laser Lens cleaner, usually those are not recommended for Slot load drives, I have also not tried using Compressed Air to blow into the slot.
It would be much more useful to me to have a USB External CD/DVD drive, as I could use that with any of the computers here. I'm just wondering if anyone knows it the Mini would be able to Boot / Install from an external USB Drive.

CD-ROM drive dead

I have an old white dome iMac with a ROM drive that appears to be dead - nothing mounts, no sound that the drive is even trying to read a disc - neither audio CD nor DVD.
My issue is I need to "nuke" everything on the hard drive, reformat it and reinstall OS 10.4 (I think that's the highest OSX version this iMac will accept?). Is there any other trick I could do to reformat this iMac? Is it possible over the network?
Thanks!
Paul

Well, to boot old PPC Macs from External Drives, they need to be Firewire, not as cheap as USB ones.
Oh...
If you can get use another Mac w/Firewire, use FireWire target disk mode...
Check whether you need a 6 pin to 9 pin FW cable or whatever each end has.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Put the Install DVD in the the other Mac, shut both down, connect with a Firewire cable, boot the other Mac holding the t key down, once the floating FW symbol shows up, boot this Mac holding the Option/alt key down, eventually the Install Disk will show as a Boot Option on this one.

Optical Drive dead - what external CD/DVD will work?

My three year old white 13" Macbook has a dead optical drive after I dropped it last month. Which external drive will work, especially if I want to do a full restore from the external drive?
Thanks much!
Zake

Hi ZDarton,
I'm a big fan of LaCie, I have several of their external HDs and I've used their external optical drives before for CD replication. Their prices are pretty fair, their build quality is very good and my experiences with their customer service department is always solid. Here's some options from their product line:
Desktop "grade" - http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10014
Portable "grade" - http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10037

Is my DVD/CD drive dead?

I just burned a DVD-R and usually I can see the disc show up on my desktop and in Finder after it's done burning. This time I don't see it anywhere. I can pop the disc into my MacBookPro and it reads fine.
Is there a way to test the drive in my MacPro to find out if it's still good or not?
If it's dead (it's the original that came with the computer), any suggestions for a good replacement?

any pioneer

Is my ipod hard drive dead?

since yesterday i have been having problem restoring my ipod.
when i restore my ipod through itune the restore goes somewhat fine ipod reboots, apple with progress bar then the plain apple logo and it stays there for 5-10 min and goes to do not disconnect and does not appear in itunes.
at this point i use windows to safely remove the ipod after which it takes about another min for the ipod to pull up the language selection screen.
then when i plug it back in it takes around another 5 min to show up in itunes (does'nt matter is itunes is open or closed) or itune may not open at all but the ipod still appears in My Computer.
when he ipod does finally appear in itunes i get the name screen like normal and i go though setting what music to sync like always but during the sync i get a -69 error.
to note my mp3s are all good and it doesn't fail at any consistent point. fails to sync at random intervals.
overall the ipod operates very slowly and i can't sync to it at all.
my guess is the hard drive is dead/dying.
i have done every re-install, file removal, and reset trick i could find including putting the ipod into disk mode. nothing works
NOTES:
iPod is 5th gen with video 30GB 2006 ver. (also when i got it)
no warranty anymore.
what i want to know is if my ipod needs repair and how much it will cost

well i am pretty sure the hard drive is dead.
my disk checks indicate alot of bad sectors.
so does anyone know how much a repair will cost?
i really like this 30GB the new classic models start at 80GB and cost $250 which is too expensive and i have no need for such space. my entire collection only spans between 7-8GB and i don't even keep a third of that on my ipod right now its only 271 songs. however 30GB offered plenty of future expansion room so thats why i got it.
so does anyone have any info?
NOTE: i am also curious about the SDRAM test output in my last post. could there be another problem with me ipod too?

EMac hard drive dead?

My eMac was running slow ... reeeeeeeally slow. Spent ages pondering every mouse click. Just opening folders was agony. I tried the usual round of fixes, some of which helped a little, but after a few hours' use, things would slow down again. Permissions repair got hung up 1/3 of the way through every time. Decided to try Disk Utility from the install disk; it reported an error (2STF/8/3: MAC-10 ata-4 - Master); research suggested that meant hard drive trouble. I tried reinstalling system software and now my Mac can ONLY restart from the Tiger disk --- it can't even mount the hard drive.
Four questions:
1. Does this mean what it looks like --- that the hard drive is dead?
2. Is there any way to access the hard drive at this point?
3. If the drive is dead, is it better to replace the internal drive or just get an external?
4. Any recommendations as to brands/spex on replacement drive?
Thanks in advance.

Drives do die! I gather you don't have an external drive nor another Mac. Hope you don't have any important files to recover either.
I had my iBook drive die a couple of years ago while visiting in Namibia on Christmas eve. It hadn't died completely. The local Apple dealer happened to be in his shop on the 26th. We were able to copy most things onto his computer and I bought an external drive and an OX 10.4 DVD. I set up the external drive with a new system and copied all my files to it. It took over 2 months before Apple were able to supply the correct parts but I was able to continue using the Mac during the wait. The iBook was still within the Applecare warranty period so there was no cost to me for the repairs. This procedure will work provided other components in the eMac are in good order.
Access to the drive depends on how dead it really is. If the drive is not dead you should be able to reformat it from the Instal disc. If this fails then repair is an option.
You will need to check whether any other parts need replacing. With my iBook one of the hardware control modules had to be replaced too. Once you know likely cost you should consider whether a new Mac is a more practical option - if you can afford one. You will get a better machine with better specifications for an effective price of new less repair costs.
In terms of recommendations - an external Firewire drive with more than enough capacity for your needs. The advantage of this is that you can use it with any new computer you choose to buy later.

Dvd drive dead...and MANY more problems

hi there,
I had a bad sector on my hard drive, so i couldn't boot my machine. I had a diskwarrior cd, so i rebuilt the volume. AFter process, the machine restarted, and ejected the cd. I went to put it back in, and pop grrrrr buzz dvd drive crapped out...mechanically. I've restarted a few times since, in verbose mode, and it hangs up waiting for a cd...so i'm guessing the machine needs the diskwarrior cd present to finish the rebuilding job. how ultimately annoying.
i went out and bought, absolutely hesitatingly, a torx set which would open the 'scenester' screws on my tibook. took the optical drive out, and obviously the part that i beleive is unhinged/broken is hidden under a metal surface.
so now here's my thing. all i want is to start my bloody machine again. i rarely use the optical drive int he first place...so i'd consider an external drive. i dont need a fancy superdrive or anything as well. infact i'm skeptical about buying any other model optical drive, as i dont have the capability to install supplementary drivers...as my machine wont boot
i also can't afford the absurd price for the replacement (cw-8121-c), i've seen it a bunch of places for 200$USD. I'm a dead broke recent student. I'm fairly sure if i can't find a solution for under 50$ then it's over with apple and I.
So basically what this is, is a general call for anything sensical. I'm open to any suggestions anyone may have, and my gawd would i be thankful. I started as a mac person 15 years ago, but with my horrible track record im moving to 'indifferent' person status.
thanks in advance!

You could try this one on eBay perhaps, it's a risky one but it's no money so it may be worth it.

Is my hard drive dead? White screen/blinking Q mark/clicking

Hi,
I'm trying not to panic here but I'm worried my HD is dead and that I've lost all of my data. I left my computer on "sleep" mode all day today, not plugged in. When I got home just a bit ago I couldn't start up the computer. It keeps going to a white screen, clicking noise, and then a flashing question mark icon. I've been trying to look online now using my PC to figure out what's wrong.
I just tried using my startup disc to boot up. I was able to do that and choose Disk Utility but then my HD did NOT show up on the left hand side. The only things that showed up there were my DVD drive and the startup disc.
I have some really important data/photos that I can't afford to lose. Am I screwed? What should I do? This Macbook is from 2008. All of the updates are current on it, I think. I've never had any problems before with the HD.

Ugh! I can't afford this! Yeah I have some really important files that I didn't get a chance to put on my external HD yet. I'm afraid to find out how much that will cost to recover. Is it POSSIBLE to get them back?
How much does a new HD cost? Did me having it unplugged on sleep cause it to die?
And, now how do I get that startup disc out of my laptop??

CD Drive = Dead?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for