Internal Optical Drive is No Longer Accessible?

My optical drive is not showing up any longer. I cannot open the tray without using a clip. And it is not showing up in my system hardware under disc burning. This has just recently happened. What can I do to access the optical drive again?

Hi-
Welcome to Discussions!
What can I do to access the optical drive again?
Make sure the power and data cables are properly connected.
Reset the PRAM.
Replace the drive.

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Internal Optical Drive not recognized after trying to Bootcamp

Around 3 months ago I tried boot camping my Macbook with Windows 7 but it ended up freezing and I had to restart my computer. When the computer had fully restarted I found that a few things had changed. First, I now had a 70 GB partition called BOOTCAMP but it was basically unusable since the Windows 7 OS was never installed in the partition, and second the Optical Drive wasn't recognized by my computer anymore so it won't work at all and the Windows 7 CD is now stuck in there.
I tried a lot of different ways that I found on the internet to try to eject the CD but nothing has worked. It's not really a huge deal since CDs are starting to become the new floppy disks but it would still be nice to have this working again.
Also, here's the original post that I made back in December. It never got any replies and somehow got moved but I was never able to see where it got moved because whenever I clicked "discussion" in "Branched to a new discussion." I would get a page that said this - "Unauthorized. Access to this place or content is restricted. If you think this is a mistake, please contact your administrator or the person who directed you here." I know the whole post is pretty long so I have a TLDR; at the end of it and I pretty much summarized the problem again at the top of this whole post.
Alright so earlier today I decided to Bootcamp my Macbook and install Windows 7 with a 70GB partition. I was using https://help.apple.com/bootcamp/mac/5.0/help/#/bcmp173b3bf2 and http://www.howtogeek.com/186907/how-to-install-windows-on-a-mac-with-boot-camp/ to help guide me through the process. Everything was running smoothly at first...I had a 32GB memory stick that I used to load the support software onto and I had a Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit DVD in my disk drive.
The first problem I ran into was when Bootcamp wanted to download the files onto the memory stick - it wanted me to format the stick. So I went into Disk Utility, clicked on it, went to erase, then formatted it to the same format it was (because it was already FAT) and then it all worked. After getting the support software onto the memory stick the next step was to partition my disk. After doing a TON of research I finally decided that 70GB would be enough for the OS, a game or two, Sony Vegas Pro, and a few small programs. So I dragged the thing to give the new partition 70 GB and pressed install.
Then, the next problem occurred - a message popped up saying "The USB drive connected to this Mac contains a bootable volume. In order to install Windows 7 from the DVD, the Boot Camp Assistant needs to disable this functionality. No information on the drive will be removed, do you want to continue?" I was hesitant at this point to do anything so I googled it and couldn't find much except this thread - Bootable volume on USB flash drive in boot camp. I decided to try it and press continue since according to the thread it would stop me if there was a problem. Once I did I THINK (I can't remember that it did for sure or not) it dismounted the memory stick, which I remember thinking was okay because I could just unplug it and plug it back in after Windows 7 was installed to install the support software (Also, I NEVER removed the memory stick until after a reboot later on). After that Bootcamp began partitioning my hard drive.
About an hour later the blue progress bar had actually filled up to at least 99% (but it looked like 100% to me) but Bootcamp still said "Status: Partitioning Disk" so I left it alone for another 1-2 hours. After that I started getting worried and googled how long this process was supposed to take and found out that this step normally only took a few minutes for most people. At this point I started looking up fixes for this but nothing matched my problem since Bootcamp itself wasn't actually frozen (when I clicked and held on the icon it didn't say "Application not responding") so I decided to check to see if the partition had worked. Then, Disk Utility froze like a few seconds after opening it up so I had to force quit that. My next option was to check under "Storage" in "About this mac" so I tried that and it froze as well. While all this was going on I kept checking back to Bootcamp and it never froze.
Now I was getting extremely worried and with no solutions on Google and no idea what to do I decided to just try and restart my computer and pray to god that it would reboot fine. Luckily, it did...for the most part. After rebooting all my applications seemed to be working fine (I can confirm that Terminal, Disk Utility, System Preferences, System Information, and Safari are all working or at least loading). I also had all my files still on my computer so that was good. Next, I checked Disk Utility to see if the partition had actually worked and it did, or at least it is showing up as "BOOTCAMP" under my main hard drive. Then, I tried using Bootcamp again and this is when I noticed something new - a warning on Bootcamp's first page that wasn't there before, "You need an optical drive to install Windows. Connect an optical drive to your computer. You cannot install Windows with a remote optical drive." I can't guarantee that it wasn't there the first time but I really don't remember it there. After reading that I checked my Desktop for the mounted Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit DVD and it wasn't there. Then, I checked Disk Utility and it wasn't showing up there either. The only things I can see on Disk Utility are my main hard drive with both partitions, my memory stick, and a random dmg file called decryptedFile.dmg (the size of this file is only 15.6mb so I don't think it could be the OS DVD).
So now I am trying to figure out how to get my computer to recognize that it does have an internal optical drive and that there is a DVD inside of it. I looked around on Google to try to find answers but all the regular options to fix this don't work since the computer itself is not realizing it's there. I don't know if this helps to prove that it doesn't realize this but I checked in System Information -> Hardware -> Disk Burning and it says "No disk burning device was found. If the device is external, make sure it's connected and turned on." And since a "Superdrive" can read disks I'm assuming it can burn them to and would be shown under that. (I don't know that much about computers though so I could easily be wrong)
Anyways, sorry for the extreme detail that I went into but I wanted to get as much information about what happened as I possibly could. For those of you who don't have time to read all that I'll put a little summary.
TLDR; Basically, I tried to Bootcamp my Macbook to run Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I ran into a few problems and then Bootcamp wouldn't move on from "Status: Partitioning Disk" so I had to restart my computer. After the restart my Macbook doesn't recognize that it has an internal Superdrive and therefore doesn't realize that there's a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD disk in it. I looked around for answers but none of the simple ones (using key commands on the keyboard and typing something into terminal) worked. Now I'm looking for help to get my computer to realize that it does have a Superdrive inside so I can get the disk out.
Thanks in advanced! If any more information is required to help please let me know so I can find it. Also, this is a Mid-2010 White Unibody Macbook.

Hello Michael Dixon2,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
In order to troubleshoot this issue where the optical drive does not accept discs, please follow the steps below.
Doesn't accept discs
Be sure to check your disc to make sure it is flat. You can check this by putting the disc upside-down on a flat surface. If the disc is bowed up on any side or in the center, do not use the disc because it might get stuck in the drive. Do not use discs that have anything attached to them or dangling from them (such as "sweeper" or cleaning discs).
If the drive struggles when you put in a disc or stops part-way, carefully look at the disc for labels that may be interfering. If there aren't any raised labels then try putting the disc in a few more times.
Try another disc to see if the issue is being caused by a specific disc.
Make sure you insert the disc far enough for the drive mechanism to activate. You need to insert discs nearly all the way before the drive will activate and pull them in. If you don't completely insert a disc, the drive will reverse and push the disc back out.
Allow the drive one or two seconds to accept the disc while it is fully inserted.
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC).
If the drive repeatedly does not accept discs, contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider, or make an appointment with an Apple Retail Store.
Apple Computers: Troubleshooting the slot-loading SuperDrive - Apple Support
Cheers,
Alex H.

Replacement internal optical drives. Are there tricks for young players?

My La Cie internal optical 16x started bumping and grinding, not releasing disks and finally not detecting disks. It went in for repair under warranty but the distributor said LaCie is no longer supplying internal optical drives. I got an external as a replacement but I still want to replace the original 4x internal drive.
I've seen a Sony DRU830A 18x internal and also one of the LiteOn internal 16x models.
My questions are: Are all these types of drives the same form factor, power usage and connections that will fit the G5 bay? ... even if they say Windows a lot on the box? (I'm aware I need to remove the front bezel and also put on the mounting screws).
Are there any other requiirements for them to work with the Mac hardware and software or will they just be automatically detected and 'acquired'? I don't care about all the bundled Windows software. However I know the internal DVD drive needs to be initialised and somehow 'certified' and regioned for DVD player to use it.

Thanks maclover for your reply and the links. The xlr8yourmac forums on CD-DVD drives were particularly relevant. One thing I noticed is that it's best to just enter 'DVD+R/RW - DVD-R/RW' and then just the brand of drive you're interested in. With all the other fields blank you get a large selection of posts, generally including the model you want info about, but even the info about installation experiences with different models is useful. However if you get very specific about your Mac model and OS version the search can return not even one post. Turns out most of the posts are about installing drives in G4s, iMacs, iBooks etc.
Flashing the drive: this seems to be a real problem in updating the firmware for any number of drives you might want to use in a Mac. In checking the company sites for Sony, Pioneer, LiteOn etc. there's always a firmware update available for download but it's an .exe file for Windows. Other posters have noted that this requires attaching the drive to a Windows machine to flash the ROM. How very convenient. With a drive you've just bought new this probably isn't all that important although when they list the improvements in the latest revision it would be useful to be able to do it. For those trying to upgrade an older drive to burn at 16x and dual layer, they're kind of out of luck. I take it you can't do this upgrading while you're running Virtual PC - no one's mentioned that you could. But I wonder if it would now be possible with the Intel Macs running Windows via Boot Camp. Either that or the service sections of Apple Stores could run a Wintel box and offer a service to flash the ROM if you took the file in on a USB pocket drive. Void your warranty while U Wait.
Thanks again, The Pioneer DVR - 111D looks like a successful candidate as a replacement drive. Posters also report good results with current LiteOn and Sony models. In fact one reports that the LiteON IS the Sony (and also the BenQ) - just $40 cheaper locally. Probably without the Windows Nero software the Sony bundles. A service technician also reported successful results with an LG internal.
Cheers, Peter.

Optical drive will no longer recognize DVDs

My optical drive is no longer recognizing DVDs. It just makes some noise and spits them back out. It will read some CDs, and it recognized my expired AppleCare tech support disk, but not DVDs. I have even tried several DVDs that I watched just a few days ago, and they are no longer recognized by my optical drive.
I checked Apple's optical drive troubleshooting page, and ended up resetting my SMC. Nothing.
Any ideas?
I would be very thankful for some help.

I guess the first question would be did it work immediately before the drive upgrade... and stop working immediately after the drive upgrade? That would seem to indicate that they may have damaged something when they did the upgrade. I'm not sure what your service rep meant by telling you that you need to "reinstall the optical drive from your OS disks". There isn't any special software needed for your drive to function properly. Can you read regular data DVDs okay (meaning if you put your Leopard DVD in... can you view the files on it?).

Internal hard drives are no longer appearing in the finder window

Hi everyone,
I'm a new macbook pro user and just noticed that my internal hard drives are no longer appearing in the sidebar of my Finder window. I have searched this issue and checked that the correct preferences are selected, never received any error messages and run Disk Utility and everything seems ok......except I still can't figure out why my devices aren't showing up!!
Any help with this is much appreciated!

FINDER PREFERENCES>SIDEBAR>EXTERNAL DISKS has the box checked?
Does the HDD icon appear on the desktop?
Does the HDD get recognized in Disk Utility?
I'm just trying to verify what your situation is.
Ciao.

Want to purchase new mac mini but I do not know how I would install programs from dvd without internal optical drive

I am planning to purchase new mac mini that just came out today but I do not know how I will be able to install programs or save stuff to disk when there is now internal optical drive. I know I could purchase an external drive but is that necesary. Thanks.

If you have access to another Mac with an DVD drive you should be able to share it using Apple's drive sharing feature in the OS or at the very least if you have a firewire cable boot into firewire disk mode...

Is it possible to use an internal optical drive/ZIP drive mount from a PowerMac G4 Graphite in a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver?

Hello, All. Is it possible to use an internal optical drive/ZIP drive mount from a Power Mac G4 Graphite (Sawtooth) in a Power Mac G4 Quicksilver? Obviously, the two computers use physicly different mounts, but does anyone have any tips or hints to make this possible? I appreciate any advice.

"I may be persistent and attempt to drill holes in the correct position in the front of the Quicksilver chassis."
Unfortunately, it's more than a case of drilling a couple of holes. The modification isn't really feasible, and after you remove the front panel from the Quicksilver case, you'll see what I mean. In the Optical/Zip drive area, the Quicksilver's front chassis wall isn't cut out the same way as previous models were. Prior to the Quicksilver models, the front plastic bezel (with the hinged Optical drive door and a blank or Zip-slotted bezel) was snapped in from the front, after the front panel was installed. The chassis wall had a large opening to accommodate installation/removal of the Optical and Zip drive carrier. As I indicated before, in the Quicksilver model, the Optical and Zip drive carrier is mounted internally. This is necessary because the front chassis wall has two separate openings cut in it. The upper opening is for the oval-shaped, hinged Optical drive door (snaps into place from the interior of the chassis) and the lower opening is a narrow slot for Zip disk insertion and the eject button. To use the Optical and Zip drive carrier from a Sawtooth G4 would require cutting the Quicksilver's front chassis wall, to create an opening large enough for the carrier. In doing this, you'd cut away the metal which has (7) small holes in it, through which the hinged door assembly's plastic mounting pins are inserted to properly position and secure it in place. If you don't want to lose the use of the hinged optical drive door, including the appearance of a seamless front panel, you can't cut away that metal. If you don't care about having a permanent oval opening in the front panel in front of the optical drive, you could attempt your modification. Because the Quicksilver's optical drive typically needs to have the trim piece unsnapped from the front of its tray, I'd want to retain the front panel's hinged door bezel to prevent excessive dust from entering the drive. As I recommended before, check ebay for a pulled carrier.

Replacing Internal optical drives on a 2008 Mac pro

I am looking to replace my internal optical drives on a 2008 Mac pro. I am thinking of purchasing Pioneer BDC-207 - Mac Pro Kit 16X 5.25" Internal Blu-ray Player, DVD.
Does anyone have any experience with this product or recommendations?

<http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BD12XMP INT&Category_Code=STORBD&Product_Count=1>

Change iDVD to burn on my faster internal optical drive?

I have a G4, OS 10.4.2, and iDVD 5. Is there any way I can configure iDVD to access my lower faster internal optical drive to burn my DVD's? If this is not available in iDVD 5, is it available in iDVD6?

Is there any way I can configure iDVD to access my lower faster internal optical drive to burn my DVD's?
So, do you have the same computer as mine?
You could create a disk image and then select drives with Toast or Disk Utility. See below.
iDVD 6 allows me to switch drives in Project Info...
You should get your computer to 10.4.4 and any other updates before installing iLife '06, or you will not get some of the features installed.
Suggest you create a disc image and then burn the DVD. File/Save As Disc Image...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=164927
This will isolate any encoding/burning issues you may encounter. Once the disc image is created, double-click the .img and burn the virtual disc that should appear on your desktop, using Toast to burn the DVD. Disk Utility to burn the .img file. Usually, you can select a burning speed in Disk Utility.
There are variations to this process based on which OS X you are using...
Open Disk Utility (in Utilities folder in Applications folder), click on the virtual disc (maybe the .img) in the left-hand window. Click the Burn icon. A new window should drop down and your SuperDrive tray will open after clicking the Burn icon. Insert a recordable DVD. (Verbatim DVD-R preferred by me.) Click the Close button. Wait. Select a burn speed. Then click the Burn button.
-->If the virtual disk selection won't allow you to click the Burn icon, use the .img file instead. This may have changed in 10.3.9 and did change in Tiger.
Also, you can use DVD Player to play the virtual disk to check your iDVD project before burning to DVD. Launch DVD Player. File/Open VIDEO_TS (Open DVD Media... in Player 4.6). Find the VIDEO_TS folder and open that. (The audio folder is for DVD-Audio disks.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006

Installing Pioneer BDR-205 Blu-ray burner as internal optical drive?

Has any one successfully installed the Pioneer Blu-ray BD-205 as an internal optical drive in their Mac Pro 1.1? I just wanted to make sure the older Mac Pro would be compatible with the new Blu-Ray burner.
Thanks,
John

I have a MacPro 3,1 with a NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT graphics card, and a Pioneer BDR-203 mounted internally via the internal SATA connector on the motherboard. Works beautifully for burning Blu-ray video, using Toast 10, and I use it to backup AVCHD files that are as large as 16GBytes each.
Would I be able to play Blu-ray video with Windows 7 on this system?
I had about given-up on Apple, and was ready to bite the bullet, and buy a Dell.

Internal optical drive quit working

My iMac's internal optical drive quit working and does not show in "System Profiler." What can be done to evaluate/fix this?

Nothing. You'll have to take it somewhere and have it replaced. Or just buy an external USB drive to use in its stead.

Brtand New Mac Pro Internal Optical Drive Won't Work

Actually, this is a two parter. My new Mac Pro internal optical drive rejects every disk I insert. It won't read anything. Should I get it replaced? Part two: I have an external Sony optical drive which was working up until yesterday. Today, I was going to go through some disks and now THAT drive is rejecting everything. I had it connected via USB and changed it to a 400 to 800 firewire. I tried to read some disks again and still they get rejected. What can I do to correct these problems?

I am having the exact same problem with my mac pro since upgrading to 10.5.7 neither of my drives will read CD or DVD and it states that no burning software was found in the system profiler

Will all PATA internal optical drives work with a Powermac G5?

Will all PATA internal optical drives work with a G5 Powermac?

Many, but probably not all, here's one that will...
http://eshop.macsales.com/static_pages/Framework.cfm?page=superdrive/sdl_powerma c_g5.html

IMac internal optical drive reads and plays cd's but DVD's spin for a few moments then eject. Then any drive utility access results in the spinning wheel of doom. Then the optical drive doesn't show up anywhere until a restart. OSX 10.6.8 - Intel Core 2

iMac internal drive locks up after trying to play a DVD. CD's work properly. All preference settings are correct. I have tried several different DVD's that work in other drives. Drive is : HL-DT-ST DVDRW GA11N. After spinning wheel of doom goes away, so does the optical drive in Disk Utility and System Profiler and no disks work because the drive isn't there until a restsrt. Any ideas? Thanks.

The battery alone is a $5 to $15 part. Hard drives vary in cost, and depending on the iMac, they may or may not be able to install a third party hard drive, or one resold through Apple. The resold through Apple drives tend to cost more. This article discusses the varying successes of third party drives on iMacs:
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-im acs
The labor costs depend on the store as well as the time to get the parts in stock. Call around.

Internal Optical Drives Lost - HELP

Both of my optical drives have gone from my PANTHER system.
This follows installing TIGER onto a SATA drive - which in the end - was not bootable. BEWARE if you expand your system using a Sonnet 4x4 PCI card - it doesn't have firmware for a bootable drive yet.
So - on discovering this and re-booting back into PANTHER - both optical drives are gone!!! So I can't Repair Permissions from the Panther Disc - or do anything for that matter. Ideally - a full O/S re-install would be ideal - but how???
All help will be greatly appreciated.
BB
G4 Dual1Ghz 2gbramMDD, PB 1.5Ghz 15 alum Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi H,
Well it's been a long day. Eventually coaxed a back up copy of 10.3.9 to boot up which gave me back the optical drives - which then allowed me to archive & install a fresh PANTHER onto the Boot Drive and have just finished up updating to 10.3.9...........
Now the printer drivers refuse to be recognized!!! Will do more work on it later as I have to get in to University to do work.
Will post back later with an update. Howver in the meantime - how the jings can I get Printer set up utility to recognize the Epson Drivers - which are sitting in the Printer Library?
BB

Internal Optical Drive is No Longer Accessible?

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