Intermittent problems playing/burning CDs

About every 3rd CD or so I try to play on my G5, I get a clicking noise and iTunes freezes up -- I can't play, eject, etc. I then have to force quit iTunes and then restart it (sometimes ejecting and reinserting the CD) and that works most of the time and I'm then able to play the CD.
This is also the case when trying to pull songs from CDs to add to my iTunes library. Overall the disc drive drawer seems much more flimsy than on the G4...
Has anyone else had this problem? I've had some IT people look at it, but of course nothing happens when they're here!

Not sure what kind of drive I have, but below is the info I got from About This Mac...
HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4165B:
Firmware Revision: C006
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: No
And if I wanted to clean the lens, how would I do that?
Thanks

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Problem Playing Burned Audio CDs

I was wondering if someone could advise me. I have started burning audio CDs using Itunes, and under preferences for Disc Format, I have chosen audio CD. However, when I try playing the burned CD on a stereo, sometimes it won't start playing right away, and some of the songs seem not to be able to play at all.
Thanks for any help offered.

Thanks very much for your reply. This is the CD diagnostics for a CD that I burned using Itunes:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
System Manufacturer System Name
iTunes 6.0.1.3
CD Driver 2.0.4.3
CD Driver DLL 2.0.3.2
LowerFilters: PxHelp20 (2.0.0.0),
UpperFilters: InCDPass (4.3.11.1), incdrm (4.3.11.1), GEARAspiWDM (2.0.4.3),
Video Driver: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400\GeForce2 MX/MX 400
IDE\DiskSAMSUNGSV2044D________________________MM101-48, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [1,0]
IDE\DiskWDCWD400BB-00FJA0_____________________13.03G13, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
IDE\CdRomCOMBOIDE5232CO_________________________0059___, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [1,0]
IDE\CdRomPIONEERDVD-RW__DVR-106D________________1.08___, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
If you have multiple drives on the same IDE or SCSI bus, these drives may interfere with each other.
Some computers need an update to the ATA or IDE bus driver, or Intel chipset. If iTunes has problems recognizing CDs or hanging or crashing while importing or burning CDs, check the support site for the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard.
Current user is administrator.
E: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D, Rev 1.08
Audio CD in drive.
Found 14 songs on CD, playing time 79:07 on Audio CD.
Track 1, start time 00:02:00
Track 2, start time 03:54:58
Track 3, start time 08:50:07
Track 4, start time 12:16:01
Track 5, start time 17:25:31
Track 6, start time 21:54:02
Track 7, start time 25:41:65
Track 8, start time 32:48:32
Track 9, start time 39:56:00
Track 10, start time 47:43:19
Track 11, start time 59:06:52
Track 12, start time 66:28:12
Track 13, start time 70:10:52
Track 14, start time 75:16:01
Audio CD reading succeeded.
Get drive speed succeeded.
The drive CDR speeds are: 4 8 12 16.
The drive CDRW speeds are: 4 8.
The drive DVDR speeds are: 4 8 12.
The drive DVDRW speeds are: 4 8 12.
F: COMBO IDE5232CO, Rev 0059
Drive is empty.

BMW Won't Play Burned CDs

I have a 2003 BMW 525i. I burned a few audio CDs with iTunes, so I could listen to them in the car. When I inserted them, either nothing would play, or a continuous noise would come from the speakers.
Should I set it to a lower running speed? Does it not play audio CDs? Or is it iTunes, do I need to use different software to burn it? I'm having a tough time figuring this out, and I need an answer!!!
I know this may be a problem with the car, so I should go to a BMW forum or go to the dealer and figure out what's up. If its a software issue, however, I figured I should check the Support Communities first.
Thanks in advanced!!!

Pretty old CD player so my first guess is it does not accept CD-R (burned) discs.

Problems reading/burning cds

dvds and program cds are working, but itunes is not reading certain burned cds, and i am having trouble burning cds.
today i tried to burn a playlist, 17 songs, 1.1 hrs, 72.7 mb on a 80min/700mb cd. it failed almost immediately and gave the message, "the attempt to burn a disk failed. the device failed to calibrate the lazer power level for this media."
a previous attempt to burn a cd gave me a message saying something about an unused underwrite buffer or something, i should have written that message down too. any ideas?

Welcome to Apple Discussions
You possibly are using CD's incompatible with your CD writer. What speed are the CD's? I use Maxell 48x with my iMac with no problems, however, I find my iBook likes the 32x. Different writers. The iMac is a SuperDrive, while the iBook is the standard CD/DVD.

Problems with burned CDs.....

Can someone help me figure out why my Burned CDs won't work on my mac if they were burned with Nero 6 for Windows (I burned several CDs on my PC and when they are inserted in my iBook, three minutes later, they get ejected!) I am wondering how I can fix this, because I also seem to have a problem being able to burn CDs from the finder as well (blank CDs don't show up in the finder, and disk utility says that I am unable to burn CDs, but I have been able to burn them 2 months ago!) please help me out if you know what is going on! I am really frustrated about this!

Hello all you super smart people! Ok, I downloaded an ISO file. Now I want to run the program that is inside that cute little file. So, I have done every thing I can think of to get that puppy to go. I have burned as image in toast...I have tried to convert to master cd in disk utilities...wasted about a dozen cd's. But every time I think I have it burned all nice and pretty, I put the disk in and low and behold the disk is not readable by my mac...can't even get the PC to read it. However, I did burn one disk that I could not run on mac but could open all the zillions of files on the PC...but I want the program to run:-( Please all you nice little cumputer geeks out there, help me. I did read somewhere that I could go into the terminal and paste in some code and that would change the ISO image into a DMG image. But the last time I messed with my terminal I just about killed my computer...actually did kill it, but fixed it:-) please help with step by step. Thanks so very very much!!

Imac won't play burned cds since itunes+ update

After I updated itunes to 7.2 my imac will no longer recognize any CDs I have burned. I get the standard "This disc has not been formatted" etc. The CDs will play on a regular CD player but not the imac. The imac will play all of my commercial CDs without problem. I have tried the utility disk repair and it says it finds no problem. I have updated permissions.
I downloaded the update a 2nd time and tried reinstalling it but I don't think it is since as soon as I click install it says installation successful after about 10 seconds.
Any ideas what could be going wrong? Seems that if it were the CD drive it wouldn't play the commercial CDS either.

added info in new topic

Troubles playing burned CDs

I'm having trouble with CDs I'm burning. At first I thought it might be audio software issues, but now I'm thinking it may be my optical drive. Seeking advice....
The issue arose after I had recorded a session in Logic Pro, then burned it to disc using Waveburner. I opened the disc in iTunes and everything looked fine and even the first song played fine, but as the second song began, iTunes crashed. I put the CD in my home stereo CD player and it wouldn't load or play...I just got the error message "bad" where usually the track number would appear on the face of the player. I made some adjustments in Waveburner, tried again and got the same results.
Thinking it might be Waveburner, I imported the audio files into Bias Peak, created a playlist and burned a disc from there. Exact same problem. Next I tried importing the audio files into iTunes, made a playlist and burned a disc there. Same problem.
On a whim, I burned a playlist in iTunes from existing songs I had imported long ago from commercial CDs in case the problem was with my newly recorded audio files. Same problem. The disc will burn fine, show up in iTunes fine, but after the first song iTunes crashes. The disc also will not play in my regular CD player. I've been burning discs with each of these workflows for a number of years and this is the first I've encountered this.
So, in a nutshell, I can burn discs without any error messages, and iTunes will recognize them but CD players won't. However, iTunes crashes after the first song. I'm using the latest version of iTunes (10.5.1), but since the discs aren't being recognized in a regular CD player, I doubt iTunes is really the culprit (nor are any of the other softwares I used for burning, I assume). Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

Thanks! I have used 2 different kinds of blank CDs during this project, TDK and Verbatim. Same results with each.
Here's the info you requested:
Model Name:          Mac Pro
Model Identifier:          MacPro3,1
Processor Name:          Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:          2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          4
L2 Cache:          12 MB
Memory:          8 GB
Bus Speed:          1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version:          MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version (system):          1.25f4
Info about the oprical drive:
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112D:
Firmware Revision:          BC14
Interconnect:          ATAPI
Burn Support:          Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache:          2000 KB
Reads DVD:          Yes
CD-Write:          -R, -RW
DVD-Write:          -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies:          CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type:          CD-ROM
Blank:          No
Erasable:          No
Overwritable:          No
Appendable:          No
The computer is just over 3 years old (AppleCare expired in July). Wondering if it's time for a replacement drive or an maybe an external....

Problem with burning CDs

Ever since I've had my iMac, I've never been able to successfully burn a CD, whether it's and Audio CD, MP3, or any other CD. Whenever I try to burn, I get an error message that says:
"The attempt to burn a disc failed. The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media."
And then the computer ejects the CD. I've tried many different brands of CDs and none of them work.
If anyone has a solution, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Sounds like a hardware problem to me.
I'd call Apple immediately and get it fixed.
I hope your warranty is still good.
With repairs being expensive once the warranty has passed, it is important to identify (and fix) these issues when they first occur.
I would have personally tried to get it to work again after the first error, and then called for assistance if it didn't work then. I would not have let this problem slide.
But, I do hope that your machine is still under warranty.
If so, give them a call now, and get it fixed.
If it's out of warranty, there are a few drives around $100 (+/-) that are suitable replacements at:
http://www.macsales.com
They are very helpful people, so I'd give them a call and have them help you to pick out the right drive for your particular version of iMac G5.
But, if it's under warranty, call Apple first.

Problems Playing Burned Disks

So I've been at this all morning and I'm so frustrated. I've burned this one file onto a CD-R disk and it says that it's there however it won't play on my TV or when I pop the disk out and then pop it back into Mac it doesn't play there either. I've tried everything. Am I burning the disks wrong? Help.

Hello David,
Is there a way to get IDVD 5 to burn to the EXTERNAL DVD burner INSTEAD of the internal superdrive that I've had for 5 years?
iDVD 5 does not support external burners natively. Follow Andrews suggestion and create a disk image .... this is a recommended procedure anyway, as it minimizes burn errors due to lack of burn speed control in iDVD.
Is there a way to avoid toast 6 lite opening automatically when I insert a disc into the external drive?
You can change these settings in System Preferences under "CDs & DVDs"
Alternately, is there a way to bring the IDVD 5 information into toast 6 lite? so that it will play the same way as if I had created a disk straight from IDVD?I've tried creating an image, and bringing it into Toast 6 (I've dragged the icon into the video tab, which it won't allow, and the data tab won't play on my DVD player.
I'm not 100% sure about Toast Lite (always used Titanium), but you should be able to burn the DVD using the disc copy option.
If an external hard drive is the wrong way to go, then I'm still having the issue of getting green squares/pausing/glitching on the DVD's, and I'd be at the same place as VladC.
Trust me you won't - just get good quality DVD-R media and burn at slow speed (2x).
hope this helps
mish

Playback volume problems on burned CDs

When I burn CD's from playlists on my iBook and play them on a home CD player (not iPod), the song playback volumes vary greatly from song to song. Some are very loud and some very soft. Is there any way to control this problem so all songs are about the same volume? The sound check option and going to "file/get info/changing volumes" on individual songs does not help.

The Sound Check option (Playback) and changing the volumes in 'Get info' does not adjust the volume when burning.
Ticking the checkbox 'Use Sound Check' in 'Preferences>Advanced>Burning' (for Audio CD only) might do the trick, but I don't find it satisfactory for me.
You can adjust the volume (gain) for each individual track by using the 'Normalize' function in various audio editors (Audacity, Sound Studio etc.).
This is a lengthy procedure, but it can be a solution when only a few tracks need adjusting. The tracks are permanently altered, unless you save it as a copy.
Maybe there are similar programs, but what really does a good job for me, is 'Jam' (roxio.com). You can select all or selected tracks to 'normalize' them.
Adjusting gain for each track individually is also possible, if some songs need to be louder or softer.
The adjustments will not alter the tracks, but are saved in a separate file.
M

Having trouble playing burned cds on other than pc?

I have finally figured out how to download tunes that I have downloaded from Itunes onto a cd... However, when I go to play them I can play them on my manual cd player ( hand held ) and the PC but when I go to play them in my cd player in the car - they wont play - says no disk read.. Why? I am using the windows media to download and choosing the audio pc option.............. Please help!

Hi, susan3598.
Can you confirm you are using CD-R's as opposed to CD-RW's?
That could be the problem for your car player.
If you eliminate that possibility, could you explain your situation a bit more clearly. I'm not sure what you mean by your I am using the windows media to download reference.

I like many need help with a problem of burning cds

I am trying to burn a simple playlist to a memorex music cd-r. Every time I try a message pops up with the error code of 4261 and then pops out the cd. Any help will be very much appriciated as I am at my wits end with this problem. Thank you so very much!
Windows, Media Center PC

Place the PSU in and connect the 20 pins connector and the 4 pins connector will do.
You may also try swapping the RAMs with another one to test f the RAM is to be at fault.

Problem playing burned dvd outside North America

Hello !
So i burned a dvd on my mac (bought in cupertino), with some pictures(jpg/png) and videos(mp4/mov). I sent this dvd to my folks in India, and on their PCs it simply wont read the dvd. I verified that the dvd works properly on my windows laptop here in Toronto.
Any idea why the dvd wont play on windows PC / laptop in India, but works fine here in north america ?
Is there some setting 'international' or somethin that should be set/unset when burning ?
Thanks !

Hi Setla,
And welcome to the forum. If it looks fine on your set top box and you used the same media as the disks you sent to your friends. Then I would drop the encoding bit rate and / or convert your audio to dolby (if thats applicable). Compressor checks for a maximum bit rate on build but that doesn't necessarily mean all players will be able to handle this (stacks of variables). My first choice would be to convert the audio and then if need be attack the video.
When making DVD's I would also recommend using something like Toast as this will go through a verify cycle which should rule out any dodgy media or writes.
Enjoy.

Cannot burn CDs on iMac G5

I see a lot of people have been having various problems with burning CDs and DVDs on the iMac G5. I have had a similar problem.
I could not burn any CDs, but I could burn DVDs. This affected iTunes, Standard folder burns and Toast. But I could burn DVDs! I tried different manufacturers CDs but this made no difference. In iTunes I got the error about "unable to calibrate laser", in other applications I got an error code.
I fixed this by modifying the CD/DVD System Preferences to Open Finder when a new CD or DVD is inserted. It was originally set to open Toast.

I'll try and be as concise as possible, but I want you to know that I've tried a few things and asked a bunch of people and still no definitive solution.
I copied an uncopywritten DVD-R on my iMac G5 using disc utility and the method described in an Apple article. I used a nextech 8x 4.6GB DVD-R. The copy DVD-R plays fine on the DVD player in my computer, but not on my JVC
HR-XVC2OU(R) home DVD player, which does play the original DVD-R. I took the copy DVD-R to a store, and it played on a Pioneer DVD player. I made a copy on a Maxell DVD-R, but had the same result. The recorder in my computer seems to be Pioneer DVD-RW DVD-K04F. Apple Chat folks said the disk utility would reproduce the DVD in the same format it was originally which, according to the JVC people, is compatible with their unit. If there's not an easy solution, I'll settle for a definitive one. If you've reached this point, thank you. I'm at the end of my rope.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Burned CDs Skip

I recently switched from an iBook to a MacBook and am having problems with burned CDs. Commercial CDs and CDs that I burned on the iBook play in my car without any problems, but CDs that I've burned from my MacBook skip a lot. I've tried burning at different speeds and have also tried a couple of different CD brands. The first track is usually okay, but then it goes downhill from there, and by the 4th or 5th track, it's skipping more than playing. By the 10th or 11th track, sometimes it won't play at all. Bumps and turns don't seem to have an effect on how much it skips. Ideas? Thanks!

Playback problems, especially when they show in the higher numbered tracks, can often be avoided by a slower burning speed. I know you said you have tried different speeds, but if you have not tried 1x, pls try it now.

Intermittent problems playing/burning CDs

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