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

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IPod Disk Drive Dead?

I have a 5th Generation 60gb video and it was originally formatted under Windows. After a year of ownership it refused to sync to iTunes in Windows XP Pro SP2. It would state that the required disk could not be found. I kept using it without syncing it for some time, all music and podcasts could still be listened to. Finally frustrated enough with having to watch all my new podcasts on the computer I restored the iPod through iTunes and attempted to sync again, the sync reached over one thousand songs and hung. I let it sync over night and it never moved past that song and eventually gave me the same disk cannot be found error. I then did multiple restores, and each time I would reconnect to sync the number song that the iPod would hang on became lower and lower (thus eliminating the possibility of a corrupt song or file.)
I decided to restore the iPod under Mac OS X 10.4.9 on my MacBook Pro. The iPod successfully restored under Mac OS X and it was recognized as Macintosh formatted under iTunes. I synced the iPod for the first time under OS X and it synced up into the two thousandth song, I became very hopeful that it might have been a Windows issue but then the iPod hung, however this time it never gave me the error that it did under Windows about the disk not being able to be found. After a couple more attempts at syncing, iTunes now hangs on the first file (a podcast) and never progresses past and eventually OS X force disconnects the iPod and I am given the 'Object was not ejected properly...' error. The iPod was put into disk mode and Finder successfully recognized the iPod however iTunes still attempted to force sync it, iTunes force syncs even if I disable that option in iTunes. Now each time the iPod is connected, iTunes attempts the sync, I am given the pinwheel and Mac OS X hangs until the iPod is disconnected and everything returns to normal. I attempted to repair the iPod disk under disk utility but the iPod is never shown in the utility.
I am at a loss here as to what to do. The familiar clicking noise of a dead drive is all too apparent when attempting to sync but it goes away after disconnecting. I am out of the 1 year warranty under Apple and would like to avoid any sort of monetary transaction if at all possible, however it is looking more and more like this may be the only solution. I have that fear in the back of my mind that it is a dead drive, but I do not understand that if it is a dead drive why it was able to be read from (listening to music) before transferring it to Mac OS X? I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions that any one may have. Thanks for reading my entirely too long of a post.

I have a 5th Generation 60gb video and it was originally formatted under Windows. After a year of ownership it refused to sync to iTunes in Windows XP Pro SP2. It would state that the required disk could not be found. I kept using it without syncing it for some time, all music and podcasts could still be listened to. Finally frustrated enough with having to watch all my new podcasts on the computer I restored the iPod through iTunes and attempted to sync again, the sync reached over one thousand songs and hung. I let it sync over night and it never moved past that song and eventually gave me the same disk cannot be found error. I then did multiple restores, and each time I would reconnect to sync the number song that the iPod would hang on became lower and lower (thus eliminating the possibility of a corrupt song or file.)
I decided to restore the iPod under Mac OS X 10.4.9 on my MacBook Pro. The iPod successfully restored under Mac OS X and it was recognized as Macintosh formatted under iTunes. I synced the iPod for the first time under OS X and it synced up into the two thousandth song, I became very hopeful that it might have been a Windows issue but then the iPod hung, however this time it never gave me the error that it did under Windows about the disk not being able to be found. After a couple more attempts at syncing, iTunes now hangs on the first file (a podcast) and never progresses past and eventually OS X force disconnects the iPod and I am given the 'Object was not ejected properly...' error. The iPod was put into disk mode and Finder successfully recognized the iPod however iTunes still attempted to force sync it, iTunes force syncs even if I disable that option in iTunes. Now each time the iPod is connected, iTunes attempts the sync, I am given the pinwheel and Mac OS X hangs until the iPod is disconnected and everything returns to normal. I attempted to repair the iPod disk under disk utility but the iPod is never shown in the utility.
I am at a loss here as to what to do. The familiar clicking noise of a dead drive is all too apparent when attempting to sync but it goes away after disconnecting. I am out of the 1 year warranty under Apple and would like to avoid any sort of monetary transaction if at all possible, however it is looking more and more like this may be the only solution. I have that fear in the back of my mind that it is a dead drive, but I do not understand that if it is a dead drive why it was able to be read from (listening to music) before transferring it to Mac OS X? I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions that any one may have. Thanks for reading my entirely too long of a post.

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

Resurrecting dead disk drive?

I have apparently experienced my first disk drive failure in 22+ years of Mac ownership! Of course I thought I had a complete backup of it, but now that it has failed I can't locate the backup so I may have inadvertantly overwritten it or it is in an archive that I haven't located yet. (This was OS 10.2.8, installed on an 80 GB internal, that I wasn't using much anymore) Computer is a G4 DA model with 2 internal drives, 896 MB RAM, DVD burner, now running 10.4.8.
I got the computer up and running reliably by installing a new drive in place of the troubled drive and cloning my working 10.4 installation from an external firewire drive to the new internal drive. I still would like to use 10.2.8 every once in a while until I get all of my apps updated to 10.4 and I would like to take one last look at the contents of that drive to see what was on it and be sure that there was nothing important. I don't know if I want to go to all the trouble of reinstalling 10.2.8 on another drive, so I was hoping there was some way I could clone the failing drive. I don't want to go to the expense of sending it to a data recovery company.
What are my options to see if there is any way I can read the drive? In the days before I gave up on the drive and installed another it did appear a couple of times on the desktop, but I was unable to access the contents. All other boots, it did not show up, and I couldn't get it to appear in any disk utility programs. (Disk Utility run from Tiger Install disk, TechTools, Disk Warrior, Drive Genius.) I was thinking I might get a new external firewire/USB drive enclosure and put the drive in there and see if I could possibly read it that way if it hasn't failed 100%. The ORIGINAL Apple/Maxstor 40 GB drive is still installed and working (OS 9.2). The drive that failed was a Feb 2002 IBM Deskstar 80 GB ATA/IDE drive. I did not upgrade the internal drive controller, so it is still the original with 137 GB limit. Since one drive works but the other failed, does that mean it is likely that the drive is non-recoverable, or is there some chance it could possibly work in an external enclosure?

Hi, TripleChime -
It's hard to know what might have gone wrong with the drive without being there.
Have you confirmed that none of the jumpers on the drive have become dislodged? Usually, though, if that were the case no drive on that bus would be available.
If the drive spins up, you may be able to recover the data from it with minimal expense. These two utilities are designed to recover data from drives which are mechanically sound, but which just won't mount for unknown reasons -
Data Rescue
Virtual Lab
Both of those are avialable in either OS 9 or OSX versions. They work best in a multi-drive Mac, since a working, writeable drive is needed as a place to put the recovered files.
If the drive fails to spin up, things are gloomier. That indicates serious, usually fatal, mechanical problems.
One such that can happen and from whic recovery may be possible is called 'stiction' - the platters stick (bad bearings, or such) at power up, and won't start turning. This can sometimes be temporarily overcome by giving the drive a hard rap while it is powered. If the drive then spins up, data may be able to be recovered from it using normal means (drive mounts and is accessibnle by Finder), or by using one of the utilities I posted above. Don't trust a drive which has experienced stiction; be ready - if it does spin up, you may have only that one session in which to recover data.
Usually, though, if a drive does not spin up the only way to recover the data is to use the services of a commercial data recovery firm. One such is DriveSavers. The services of such firms is not cheap.

Just bought a Lenovo 3000 N200 without a hard disk drive, need software

I just bought a Lenovo 3000 N200 Type 0769-BLG assembly date 07/09 from e-bay, it looks brand new but it had a fault, it was dead, perhaps a faulty motherboard and the hard disk drive had been removed. Assuming I can get the fault fixed, where can I get the Lenovo software that came with the original hard disk drive, I would prefer a free source, if that is possible, perhaps some kind person has put all of the CD's on to a DVD that I can borrow or buy a copy of. I was an IBM employee for 30 years before retiring 15 years ago. Dan McLean in Scotland, UK.

Call customer service directly to get a quick solution for this.
IPnaSh
First Spanish Community Guru - Colaborador ad honorem

HT2801 my disk drive will start up when i plug it in, and runs for about 30 seconds, but wont get recognized in my computer. It used to show up in the finder but that doesnt happen anymore

my disk drive will start up when i plug it in, and runs for about 30 seconds, but wont get recognized in my computer. It used to show up in the finder but that doesnt happen anymore

If you go to Disk Utility, can you see the drive on the left hand side? If not, then the drive is dead. You'll have to buy a new drive.
Also, this forum is "Older Hardware". We specialise in hardware from the 1980s.

Is the disk drive broken?

I'm fixing up a family friend's 1st gen Macbook and am experiencing a problem with the disk drive. When I was putting in a CD it wouldn't go in, and it feels as if there is a disc already in there. In fact, I'm almost positive there is because when I received it her teenage son asked "By the way... is there a...uh... cd in there by any chance?"
I've tried everything to eject it. I've tried commanding it in the terminal, using the eject button, pulling it out with tweezers, etc, but nothing works. When I try to eject it the computer doesn't even attempt to, it just sits there silently and nothing moves. I'm pretty sure it's dead, but just wanted to know others opinions. It doesn't register that there is a disc in there either.
And if it is dead, would it be cheaper to buy an external CD drive or a replacement to install myself? She's not willing to pay to have Apple fix it, considering the reason I have it is to replace a LCD screen that she cracked and left for a year and a half. I'm a beginner considering I'm only sixteen myself, so if it's an easy repair I would be willing to do it if need be.
Thanks in advance.

See my post here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2290441

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.

My hard disk drive failed. How do I deactivate that copy?

My hard disk drive failed. The genius at The Apple Store checked it out and said it was dead. Apple sold me another drive with just the operating system on it. Now when I installed Photoshop CS6, I am told that this is my second copy. How do I deactivate the copy on the failed disk drive. I was able to copy most of my data files from the drive. I do not know if the copy of Photoshop on that drive still works or not. What should I do?

Call Adobe support to reset activations. Have your papers handy...
Mylenium

Hard disk drive replaicement

I have a Hard Disk 1 (301) error message, when turning on my laptop. It says something along the lines of "the hard disk has detected an imminent failure".
My laptop is a HP Pavilion G7-1033cl (windows 7), purchased in 2011, so it's out of warranty.
As far as a noticed in some other answers, I shoul replace the hard-disk for sure.
Ok, my question is: What kind of hard disk shoul I buy for replacing it? What's the best recommended?
Thank you for your help!
GStoicu

Whenever the Hard Disk fails with an error Hard Disk 1 [301] that indicates that the Hard Disk Drive has failed and that requires a replacement to resolve the issue
This issue could be due to Application or driver conflicts, virus issues, file corruptions due to incompatible applications, improper shutdowns, update failures due to conflicts, sudden power surges, if notebook is dropped etc..
HP will provide a replacement Hard Disk Drive if the Notebook warranty is Active, If not you need buy a SATA Hard Disk Drive from a retail shop nearby
Please make sure you are getting at least equal capacity as the original one in order to use Recovery Disks. If you need you can buy a larger, but not smaller capacity Hard Disk Drive. For example if you have a 500GB Hard Disk Drive you can upgrade it to 750GB Hard Disk Drive but not 320GB Hard Disk Drive
Please try the below shown troubleshooting steps once:
Step 01. Remove the battery and unplug the AC/Power Adapter
Step 02. Press and hold the Power button for more than 30 Seconds
Step 03. Plug in the AC/Power Adapter (leave the Battery out for now)
Step 04. Press the Power button and check if the Unit works normal
If the above mentioned steps does not help, then you can try reseating the Hard Drive on your Notebook
If the issue persists again please Contact HP if your HP Notebook is under warranty, HP would replace the Hard Disk Drive and provide you a Recovery media to restore factory operating system after replacement (if you've not yet created Recovery Discs/USB Media)
Note: Back up all the personal data to an external drive if it's possible. Otherwise you could connect the failed HDD via SATA to USB adapter with another PC or same PC after replacement of HDD & re-installation of OS and try copying /recovering the files. You can also refer to the below shown link for further support
http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-Data-from-the-Hard-Drive-of-a-Dead-Laptop
Please click on the link In order to Identify, Prevent, Diagnose & Recover from Drive Failures on HP Notebook Hard Drives & Solid State Drives :
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02876562.pdf
You can Check your warranty Here to verify the status and Click Here to order a new Hard Drive
Hope this helps, for any further queries reply to the post and feel free to join us again
**Click the KUDOS star on left to say Thanks**
Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.
Thank You,
K N R K
Although I am an HP employee, I am speaking for myself and not for HP

CD Disk drive

My CD disk drive is not working.Does anyone had experienced the same problem.Does anyone know whether there is any service agents for Lenova, in New Jersey to get it repaired. Any comments on this regard will be appreciated
Sebastian

This happened to me. After several days of trying to fix it myself, I called Lenovo support. They ran through some diagnostics with me and concluded that the drive was dead. This is considered a repair the customer can do so they sent me a replacement. I am also in New Jersey and the replacement drive arrived the day after i called. I swapped it out and returned the old one using return labels they provided. No problems with the new one at all. Very quick and easy. I wished i called them sooner.
Just an FYI, they take a credit card number so that they can charge you if you never send the broken drive back to them. as long as you send the drive back, the credit card is never charged.
Message Edited by spoonful on 04-24-2008 12:57 PM

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.

A CD is stuck inside my disk drive!

I CD got pushed into my disk drive and now it won't eject. It also won't read the drive. It keeps making noises when I open the laptop and log on as if it is trying to eject, but it never works. I'm pretty sure my disk drive is dead, but any way to get the disk out?

Five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive
Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the
      left mouse button until the disc ejects.
2. Press the Eject button on your keyboard.
3. Click on the Eject button in the menubar.
4. Press COMMAND-E.
5. If none of the above work try this: Open the Terminal application in
      your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:
        /usr/bin/drutil eject
If this fails then try this:
Boot the computer into Single-user Mode. At the prompt enter the same command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt without quotes.

G4 Mini Hard Drive dead?

Hi All,
I've been unable to start my Mini and using Disk Warrior to try to fix the hard drive yielded the message ""Directory cannot be rebuilt due to a disk access error (0, 1613)""
Does this mean the hard drive is dead? or would I still be able to use the hard drive with a fresh reinstall?
Thanks

Hi all,
I'm experiencing the same problem as krs24rbn, it looks that my hard disk is dead, but would like to be sure of it before buying a new HD.
Is there any way to be suere of this? I started seeing wrong behaviour before installing last Apple update to 10.4.8. I first experienced some problems with mail going slow, then accessing internet with Safari and FireFox hangups, specially with java intensive webs. Other weird things occur like iTunes radio volume going down and up depending on internet traffic, (or at least it looked taht way).
Then found some problems to start up, I begun backing up and got most of my files on a safe externl HD. When I was almost done some files appear unable to copy correctly. Finally my mini got dead.
I erased the disc and instaled a fresh copy of Tiger, booted normally and start to reinstall.
After one or two days problems began again, so format, reinstall....
Sometimes Disk Utility command Repair Disk worked fine others stopped reparing with message "invalid node structure" and
"Error:la tarea subyacete ha registrado un fallo a la salida".
Rigth now I can start from my CD and intall the
mac OS but my mini can't boot. It shows the apple logo on a grey screen, that's it!
Shoud I change my disk? is there any tool to repair/eliminate phisical bad sectors on the disc?

Disk drive dead?

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