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.

Similar Messages

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

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.

External optical drive that works?

Hi, I have had an Imac 27 i5, its 3 weeks old now, I did the free Lion os upgrade before realising that Lion seems to be buggy.
I have had problems some of which I have got over thanks to this forum, some I have not I still cant get my isp set-up working but a work-around is giving me service, the wireless connection drops out regularly but using ethernet works. Mail wont send my emails and Itunes is problematic. The bluetooth trackpad, mouse and keyboard disconnects frequently but thankfully reconnects soon after. Neither of my two existing external hard drives or my external optical drive would work on this Imac, I replaced one hard drive and that works now, but tells me that I have 120gb free on a drive that is only 120gb and has a full Time machine backup on it?). I replaced the optical drive with a very cheap one and that works now.
My old optical drive used Llitescribe and I really want to carry on using it with the Imac, Can any of you guys recommend an optical drive with Litescribe that will work with the Imac and os Lion? I am getting tired of having to spend out money replacing things I expected to work with the Mac and dont!
I brought the Imac because I wanted a hassle free computer, I read and took in all the reasons for using Mac over Microsoft and to be hounest with you the Last 3 weeks have nearly driven me to send the Imac back! I expected it to "just work" and be easier to use but it has not turned out that way for me up to now, I have contacted Apple about the problems and they dont seem to be of very much help - up to now, but thanks to you guys and this forum I am getting things sorted, slowly. Apple need to get thier act together I think! What hurts the most is that my 3 year old £600.00. HP PC with windows 7 worked "out of the box" and has "just worked" to this day! I cannot say that about the £1650.00. Imac!

The external Apple superdrives are compatible only with the Macs that did not come with an internal optical drive. Take it back and get a 3rd party drive, preferably one with drawer loading. I have an 2011 iMac and bought this external drive: 24X OWC Mercury Pro. I do a lot of ripping of audiobooks for my iPhone so wanted one with a faster read throughput than USB 2 which is all my iMac has. So I use the FW port on the drive.
OWC is a very well know Mac supplier and has excellent reputation both for item quality and customer support.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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...

ITunes8 -- all optical drives stopped working

After installing iTunes 8, all my optical drives stopped working. Windows simply didn't recognize them. Device manager said they were missing. However the BIOS found them. Uninstalling iTunes8 fixed it.
However, like everyone else here, now I can't return to a previous version of iTunes because it refuses to recognize my library file (a .itl file).
Argg
What can I do, to either use an older version of iTunes, or fix this problem?

I tried the suggested fix on Apple's site (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2372?viewlocale=en_US) but both my DVD drives remained invisible.
Then I tried the one at MS suggested by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on his ZDNet blog (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2600):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
Hooray! It worked! Not only have my drives reappeared, but I am burning a DVD right now using InfraRecorder.
Unfortunately, now I get a nasty message about missing registry data whenever I start iTunes, but I assume Apple will fix this problem in some future release. I'll have to live with it until then.
I spent hours on this today and almost ordered some new SATA drives, thinking the IDE controller on my mobo must have gone bad. I really appreciate the existence of Adrian's blog and other third party resources!
And I am very annoyed at Apple right now. Releasing software that breaks peoples' computers in a major way is not acceptable, IMHO. Leaving the bad software out there and posting fixes that don't work is even worse.
BTW, I am running XP Pro SP2. I have Logitech hardware and software installed, as well as a number of other USB devices (Treo, Canon printer and scanner, iPod) so (according to Adrian and other sources) I guess I was a likely victim.
Note that, having been burned before by new major releases of iTunes, I was cautious: I held off on installing iTunes 8 until the second release, hoping they'd have fixed any really bad bugs that showed up in the first release by then.
Silly me.

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.

Macbook Pro optical drive stopped working after upgrading from Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to OS X Mavericks.

My Macbook Pro optical drive stopped working after upgrading from Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to OS X Mavericks.. I wonder what's the work around or troubleshooting to fix this. Thanks!

try and Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)

Macbook pro optical drive stopped working after installation of mavericks

macbook pro optical drive stopped working, just spins and won't eject, ever since I upgraded to Mavericks, thoughts?

I have the same problem and was advised by someone to reset System Management Controller (SMC). I haven't tried it yet though. I wish it could fix it. Let's give it a shot!

Internal optical drive quit working

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