Clean Install Leopard OSX / Optical Drive Not Working

I have a 4 year old 15" MBP and I want to perform a clean install. The problem is that I my optical drive is not working. It reads in any disc for a few seconds and then spits it out. Is there a way to get around this because I need to use my Leopard OSX disc in order to perform a clean install. Thank you.

Apple Portables: Troubleshooting the slot load optical disc drive

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Optical drive not working only ejecting DVDs

Hi guys, I have a Macbook Unibody model no MacBook5,1. The thing is a month back the optical drive stopped working. I insert a DVD, its tries to read it for about 15 seconds and ejects it. Now the funny thing is last night i tried playing Dexter on it (great show) and it worked!!! but today i tried playing the same DVD and it does the 15sec eject thing. Now i'm in China, apple care expired about a month ago and i'm looking for a way to fix this with my hands. Any help would be great! Thanks

Buy an external drive.

How do I Install OS 9.2.2 on iMac G3, Optical Drive Not Working

Okay, this is the issue I have...
I have an iMac G3 that has a complete blank hard drive in it. How, I formatted it.
I also have Intel iMac with Snow Leopard and ofcourse, I have OS 9.2.2 CD.
Trouble is, the optical drive in G3 doesn't work now. Is there a way I can install OS 9.2.2 using my Intel iMac to G3's Harddrive. I don't mind opening the G3 to remove the hard drive.
I really need help over here and appreciate the suggestions.
Thanks,

Help? Here's the situation. I've got a iMac G3 with OS 9.2.2. While trying to reinstall my speech software (blind user) in the system folder, I think I accidentally moved the finder to the trash. Basically the OS ate itself. Panicked, I restarted and it all went to pieces.
When I tried booting the system, it gives me the start screen like it's loading, and then once loaded, gives me a blank background and blank menu bar atop. A few times the message: Error 10 "Finder" has come up and I'm stuck.
To make things more interesting, my internal disk drive is no longer there, so I'm using a firewire external drive (Dell, does that matter?) and trying to reinstall the system from the disk.
While in this process, I've reset the PRAM, I've booted holding down C, nothing changed. I booted holding down Option and got the choice to boot from the firewire drive, but when selected, I got a nice little floppy disk icon with a flashing question mark. The computer then resorted to booting from the half-deleted system, and I'm back to square one.
Lastly, I booted holding down T, and now I have a blue screen with a big yellow firewire icon bouncing around like a screen saver and I am stumped.
Please help. My next attempt to reboot will be dropping it from a 10-story building. Thanks in advance!

External Optical Drive not working with iMac

I have a memorex external drive that I have been using to install Windows 7 with boot camp and have successfully used it on 2 mac-mini's. I am not trying to install Windows 7 boot camp on an iMac that has a broken internal optical drive but the external will not run.
I have tried:
- Startup Utility: Can see the external in there.
- External shows up on desktop with Windows 7
- External shows up in disk utility
- Windows shows up in startup menu with holding down Option.
I see iMac SSD Drive, Recovery HD Drive , Windows CD , EFI Boot cd as options.
If I select Windows it takes me to a black screen that says it doesnt see a boot CD clicking on EFI boot does nothing.
Anyone have any possible solutions into getting this to work?

Valen85 wrote:
I have a memorex external drive that I have been using to install Windows 7 with boot camp and have successfully used it on 2 mac-mini's.
Mac Minis without built-in Optical drives behave differently than iMacs with built-in drives for boot ability,
I am not trying to install Windows 7 boot camp on an iMac that has a broken internal optical drive but the external will not run.
I see iMac SSD Drive, Recovery HD Drive , Windows CD , EFI Boot cd as options.
If I select Windows it takes me to a black screen that says it doesnt see a boot CD clicking on EFI boot does nothing.
This is confusing. If you have the external Optical Drive (Memorex) connected via USB to the iMac and insert a Windows 7+ DVD in it, the Apple Bootmanager will see OSX, Recovery HD, Windows (if already installed on the iMac's internal drive) and possibly Windows and EFI boot from the DVD.
The Windows and EFI Boot will not work if you try to boot the iMac from the external. Test this from the internal Optical drive as well. If your iMac is a UEFI Mac (2013+) it will let you boot from the DVD directly (without Bootcamp).
Bootcamp Assistant will refuse to let you use the external Optical drive, if you try use it to install Windows. BCA only works with internal Optical drives as far as Windows installation is concerned, on Macs that have a built-in optical drive. The exceptions to this rule are 2012 Macs and some 2011 models.

How to load OS if optical drive not working

Hi, I'm just thinking ahead to deal with a possible crisis as sometimes I work in remote areas of Asia. Is the only way to load the complete Mac OS onto a machine via the DVD install disc or via a lengthy download? I'm probably revealing the depth of my ignorance here, - but can you not somehow copy the install disc onto an external drive and load it that way, or does it not work like that?
My current superdrive will no longer burn disks but is still managing to read them, but if this facility too fails when I'm in the middle of nowhere how can I reinstall the OS should this become necessary?
I suppose I could carry an additional external optical drive for this contingency but much easier if its possible from a drive.
A stop-gap measure would be to use a bootable backup of the machine that I have on an external hard drive but that does not solve the whole issue.
thanks
Simon

Hi there, can you explain in more detail how to install Leopard from the disk image of the Leopard install DVD that I got Disk Utility to create please?
With the actual disk you just hold down c and it forces the machine to boot from the disk, I dont understand how to get the machine to boot from the disk image when it is not appearing as a bootable volume. If I click the disk image it gives me the option to restart and begin installation, if I agree to this it restarts the machine but just as normal, from whatever startup disk is already selected - it does not restart from the disk image.
Sorry if I am being dim,
Simon
I have it on a separate volume of an external HD, another volume of this HD contains a bootable SuperDuper backup.

Optical drive not working since upgrading to Mountain Lion

Backstory:
I ordered a new MacBook Pro with Retina Display after a coworker expressed interest in my current laptop (a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MBP). I had just upgraded the current MBP to Mountain Lion, but decided to sell in order to offset the cost of the new machine.
As I started backing things up last week, I realized that my optical drive had ceased functioning ("The operation can't be completed because you don't have the necessary permission." pops up whenever any optical media, blank or otherwise, is inserted).
I took the computer to the Apple Store, where they kept it overnight. They tried swapping in a new optical drive, but were unable to get the machine to correctly recognize optical media. I was told it was a permissions issue with Mountain Lion. They offered to downgrade the OS for me, but Mountain Lion is one of the selling points (as is "working optical drive"). Now my coworker is a little less eager to buy.
My new MacBook Pro should arrive in the next few days, at which point I'll take my current machine back to the Apple Store. I'll try to get them to do a full OS reinstall and see if they can repair the permissions issue in the process, but I'm not optimistic.
My question is this:
Is it likely a subsequent OS update will address this issue? Or am I simply out of luck?

You paid for a license to use Mountain Lion & that license is forever tied to YOUR Apple ID. You cannot distribute Mountain Lion in any way shape or form. If you were to sell your computer, with Mountain Lion installed, as I've already provided, the new owner will never be able to update or restore OS X, should the need arise. You will have sold the new owner a huge bag of hurt.
Good luck.

ML clean install on 2013 Mac Mini - not working

Hello guys,
I have a weird problem with my new Mac Mini. I received it yesterday, the first thing I wanted to do was to format "Macintosh HD" and do a clean install of Mountain Lion using a bootable USB. I will be using the computer only for audio composing / mixing and I don't want any pre-installed junk on it. I've done this numerous times with other Macs in the past. However, when I try to boot using the Mountain Lion USB, it gives me a "prohibited sign" and I can't boot from it. Then, I tried to boot with the Mountain Lion recovery partition and re-install Mountain Lion through there, but I can't format the internal HDD using Disk Utility, most likely because the recovery partition is also on that hard drive? I've tried several things, without success:
Repair disk (permissions)
Reset PRAM / NVRAM
Make bootable USB's using Disk Utility, Lion Disk Maker and Carbon Copy Cloner
I imagine if I could boot into recovery mode and format the HDD from there, it would work using online recovery, but how can I format the HDD when the recovery partition is also on this HDD? And why doesn't the Mac Mini accept the Mountain Lion installer USB in the first place? Or does the installer not recognize the Mac Mini? Very confused, any help would be appreciated.
Best regards,
JPeters86 / NL

If your Mac mini has a fusion drive, it shipped with a "special Fusion Drive only" version of Mountain Lion. While the difference is apparently mainly a Fusion Drive aware version of Disk Utility, no other version of Mountain will boot your mini. However, you should be able to reinstall a working copy of Mountain Lion complete with all the apps you did not want by doing a Cold boot (boot from a powered off condition) while holding down the Commd+R keys and performing the reinstallation from the Recovery drive. An internet connection is required.
If by any chance you erased or reformatted the entire drive, thereby deleting the Recovery partition, you can still recover by holding down Option+Command+R during the reboot. This will force a reboot via the internet and will be a lot slower, but you should still be able to install a functional copy of Mountain Lion this way.
Hopefully the two streams of OS X will merge in Maverick.

Doing clean install but logic studio does not work. Getting Error message

I have my box Logic Studio 9 upgrade but it will not install on my SSD. Final cut and all other reinstalls worked. Cannot install LP 7 because it is a PPC
written program. Im trying to do a clean install of the lion OS but cannot get my most inportant program to install. I dont want to buy the program again at the app store. What do think my options are? I've had Logic since 6.0

Hi
First, get rid of your designer, the page design/code is a mess.
There are a number of problems with the page, not least being the disabling of the back button in all browsers I tested it in, (visitors may visit once with this, but are unlikely to do so a 2nd time).
The menu system is a fixed size so that when the browser is resized it overflows the browser window.
The use of tables for layout is not recommended as it is inaccessible to users using assistive devices.
To put this more politely, if you paid for this, ask for your money back. If you did not pay, then start again and use one of the dreamweaver layouts for your page, for more info, see - http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/introducing_new_css_layouts.html.
PZ

Apple external optical drive not working on macbookpro

I removed my optical drive from my 2011 2.3, macbookpro 13" and added a 2nd hard drive. I have an apple external optical drive(cd/dvd) which I hooked up
via usb and it would not work. I connected the apple external optical drive to my two other mac mini's and it works on both of them. Any reason why the external optical drive would not work on a macbookpro? If anyone has suggestions I would be most greatfull. Thank you in advance.

Click here and follow the instructions.
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Re: Tecra M9 - Clean install of XP SP3 - sound not working

I've installed XP SP3 on my M9 from scratch, all drivers are loaded and my device manager says everything's hunky dory, but sound doesn't work from internal speakers or the headphone jack.
I've reinstalled the Realtek drivers a couple times now but still get nothing.
Help!

Hi
Before you would install the Realtek sound driver you have to ensure that the MS patches and fixes; KB835221 and KB888111 has been installed on your system.
After the installation of both patches you will have to reboot and then could follow with Realtek sound driver.
At the other hand you could check this Toshiba article:
+Audio muted (no sound) after installing Windows Vista+
http://askiris.toshiba.com/ToshibaSupportSite/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1886 758xml&sliceId=&dialogID=60381249&stateId=0
Its about Vista but maybe it will help you too with preinstalled XP

Installed new internal hard drive, not working

Hello everyone. I have an iMac model # A1224. My hard drive crashed, therefore I purchased this one:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0S02860/
I have installed it and when I turn it on I get the gray screen with a blinking question mark. Anyone have any idea why it would do this with my new hard drive. Thank you.

Well, did you reinstall the operating system? If not, yes, you're going to get a blinking question mark, because the Mac doesn't have a system to boot from! You need to use your Mac's installation DVD or a newer retail version of OS X to either install a new clean system, or recover from any Time Machine backup you may have.
Matt

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive to do a clean install of Lion. I have tried to use the InstallESD.dmg but it still will not do a clean install so that I do not have to do a reinstall from the Recovery (That just re downloads and takes over 6 hours)?

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive to do a clean install of Lion. I have tried to use the InstallESD.dmg but it still will not do a clean install so that I do not have to do a reinstall from the Recovery (That just re downloads and takes over 6 hours)?
The system I'm have is a Mac-mini that had SL on it and no SuperDrive. I have also call Apple Support and they have really have not been to much help over 1st did my up grade to Lion and Installed the Lion Server.... it lost my SSL that I paid for and kill almost on of my server setting, plus kill all my web servers (using apache vhosts), and not to say the LDAP will even let remote users login to your laptops.
PS: There is no way that I'm going to buy a Install USB from Apple... They have over billed me over $300.00 because the Apps Store still has bugs (Glad I did not write that App/Service)
If there is anyone that can give in the information to create a USB install stick, I would be very thinkful.

Here you are bro, courtesy of "softpedia.com"....brilliant site!!!
If you ever had problems with your Mac OS X installation you know that the first thing you should do is to check the startup volume using Disk Utility.
After the check has ended and, if the errors exceed a certain level of seriousness, the Disk Utility application will require you to restart your Mac and use its Mac OS X Install disc counterpart.
Other users may have to reinstall OS X altogether, but will find, or already know, that their SuperDrive (a CD/DVD reader and write combo drive) is not functioning properly and it will not be able to read the Install disc.
Although this might happen to Mac OS X Leopard users due to faultyhardware, the vast majority of problematic SuperDrives will be encountered inside Snow Leopard running Macs.
This is due to the updated SuperDrive firmware included in either the Install disc or the software updates one has to install to reach the latest version of OS X, namely 10.6.6.
This can be fixed by flashing the SuperDrive’s stock firmware using free command line tools that one can find for free online (I will write about this process also, but at a later time because this article only focuses on allowing you to create your own alternative USB boot disc).
If you are reading this last bit of information with skepticism, than you should know that it happened to me too. Despite all my tries to make it work properly, the SuperDrive kept on munching any inserted DVDs and just popped them out in about twenty seconds.
The workaround to this issue was to create my own Leopard bootable USB memory stick. I am not suggesting a Snow Leopard bootable stick mainly because there are lots of users that have decided to buy the cheaper, Upgrade version, which I have not tested and, therefore, I’m not sure if it will work properly once written to a USB disk.
And now, here are the exact steps you should follow in order to obtain a fully bootable Leopard (or Lion) Install disc.
Step 1 (If you already have the Leopard install disc DMG file you can skip to Step 2)
Launch Disk Utility (you can find it inside /Applications/Utilities). Here select the Leopard Install disc in the list of drives on the left and click on the New Image menu entry at the top of the window. A save message will appear where you will have to select the Desktop as a destination.
Step 2
After Disk Utility has finished creating the Leopard DMG, insert your USB stick and erase all data and reformat the disk. To do this select the USB in the list of drives on the left and, after clicking on the Erase tab on the right side of the window, choose the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format and click the Erase button beneath.
Step 3
After the USB has been reformatted, download the SuperDuper app from HERE and launch it. Once SuperDuper starts, you will only have to select the DMG in the Copy drop-down menu, your USB memory stick on the right and hit the “Copy Now” button.
One can also use Disk Utility for this task but creating a bootable USB stick failed 2 out 4 times when copying the DMG to the stick (with the exact same settings each time). Creating the bootable stick using SuperDuper proved to be the perfect way to do it because it worked each of the 4 times I tested it.
The steps above can also be used to create a bootable Mac OS X Lion USB by using the InstallESD.dmg image you can find inside the Lion installer (named “Install Mac OS X Lion.app”) downloaded from the Mac App Store in the /Applications folder.
To locate the InstallESD.dmg right click the Lion installer, select the “Show Package Contents” entry, go inside the “Contents” folder, and from there into the “SharedSupport” folder. Inside this folder you can find the InstallESD.dmg you can use to create your own bootable Mac OS X Lion USB stick. To do so, go to the third step described above and use the InstallESD.dmg as the DMG to be copied to your USB disc.
That’s it! Once the process ends you will have a fully bootable Leopard (or Lion) USB disk that you can use as an alternative to the Apple’s DVD Install disc that comes bundled with all Macs.
To use your newly created bootable disk you will have to restart the Mac, press and hold the OPTION key until the StartupManager appears. Here, select the Mac OS X Install disk using your keyboard arrows and press return to start from the selected drive.

Since I upgrade to Lion OS my optical drive stop working can't read or write at all I did what I could to fix it but still not working , any help please

Since I upgrade to Lion OS my optical drive stop working can't read or write at all I did what I could to fix it but still not working , any help please

It sounds like you may have multiple problems, but none of them are likely to be caused by malware.
First, the internet-related issues may be related to adware or a network compromise. I tend to lean more towards the latter, based on your description of the problem. See:
http://www.adwaremedic.com/kb/baddns.php
http://www.adwaremedic.com/kb/hackedrouter.php
If investigation shows that this is not a network-specific issue, then it's probably adware. See my Adware Removal Guide for help finding and removing it. Note that you mention AdBlock as if it should have prevented this, but it's important to understand that ad blockers do not protect you against adware in any way. Neither would any kind of anti-virus software, which often doesn't detect adware.
As for the other issues, it sounds like you've got some serious corruption. I would be inclined to say it sounds like a failing drive, except it sounds like you just got it replaced. How did you get all your files back after the new drive was installed?
(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com, in the form of buttons allowing for donations. Donations are not required to use my site or software.)

MacBook Pro Late 2011 : Optical Disk Drive not working?

MacBook Pro Late 2011 : Optical Disk Drive not working?
When i try to a put in a cd or dvd; it rejects it automatically within 10-15 seconds.
I have resetted SMC and PRAM; no chages.
Don't know what to do. Please help.
Thank you.

Clean the heads.
check to see if it is under warranty.
buy external DVD/CD rw

Optical Drives Not Found/Not Working

Hello everyone,
I'm having trouble getting my optical drives working. They are both the same make and model, and they both have power (open and close) but they aren't recognized by the system. I installed Arch a couple of weeks ago, after the init scripts/systemd change, so nothing was broken there (I'm not sure if that would even have anything to do with it.
I've done some research to see if I could find any drivers/firmware, but all of things I've found are only for Windows. The optical drives do work in Windows. I have added myself to the 'optical' group, and dmesg | grep CD gives:
[ 0.630535] ata5.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS04, max UDMA/33
[ 0.630560] ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
I also recall reading here that perhaps they aren't being picked up by the kernel, but I am very unclear on how to check to see what the kernel is picking up. I'm also not sure if they have ever worked under Arch and then stopped, or whether they never worked at all. I just found out earlier today when I went to burn a CD and xfburn gave a message saying that there were no burners found.
The /dev directory has no cdrom* or sr* listings at all. lshw also shows nothing about the optical drives. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

I unplugged one of the drives, but it still did not show up in /dev. I checked the systemd log and it shows the folllowing:
[dochollidae@ArchLinux ~]$ sudo journalctl | grep DVD
Dec 02 03:40:58 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 02 08:10:08 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS04, max UDMA/33
Dec 02 08:10:08 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 03 04:32:35 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS04, max UDMA/33
Dec 03 04:32:35 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 03 13:25:44 ArchLinux kernel: ata3.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 03 13:59:04 ArchLinux kernel: ata1.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 03 14:11:33 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 04 02:31:28 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
Dec 04 11:52:41 ArchLinux kernel: ata5.01: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S162L, TS08, max UDMA/33
The one labeled "TS04" isn't there anymore, but the one that is doesn't show up in devices.
I looked into writing udev rules, and I came across this thread and created a file /etc/udev/rules.d/82-cdrom.rules:
SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sr0", SYMLINK+="cdrom cdrw dvd dvdrw", ENV{GENERATED}=1
# permissions for IDE CD devices
SUBSYSTEMS=="ide", KERNEL=="hd[a-z]", ATTR{removable}=="1", ATTRS{media}=="cdrom*", GROUP="optical"
# permissions for SCSI CD devices
SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", KERNEL=="s[rg][0-9]*", ATTRS{type}=="5", GROUP="optical"
That didn't do the trick, but being that I have never dealt with writing udev rules before, I'm not sure if I'm going about it the right way.

Clean Install Leopard OSX / Optical Drive Not Working

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