Is CD/DVD drive dead ?

Hi, I inserted a DVD last night that my friend made and took some still frames off of it. I put the computer to sleep until tonight. The DVD was still mounted but the drive was acting like it wanted to spin up or something. I thought this was odd, so I just restarted to maybe clear it up. After restarting the CD never appeared on the desktop, so I hit the eject key on the keyboard, but nogthing happened and the eject symbol never appeared for a short time on the screen as usual. I then went to system profiler to see if it was there, cliked on Disc Burning, and it says "no burning device was found" which to me sounds like it doesn't even know I have a Super Drive attached. Yikes!! I have my friend's DVD stuck in the drive. When I hold the mouse button down on restart it the screen just stays gray, I'm assuming because the computer thinks there's no drive. How do I resolve this problem? Did the drive die? Help! ....Thanks

I have been having similar problems on a G4; since moving to 10.4 from 10.3.8. I don't know if it was the software or a conflict; after I can't eject the disk, I also can't shut down, log out, force quit. . . . .
I updated the OS, installed a processor upgrade, and a new video card on the same day. It looked like everything worked until I tryed to eject a disk and it wouldn't open the tray.
I end up powering the machine down just to eject a disk. It doesn't matter what is on it, once it is used by any application other than an installer, they stay in until reboot.
I get errors stating mirroragent is not responding most of the time. Sometimes the error cites "dnotifyd" whatever that is.
Robert Thompson

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Stuck: Need Disk repair but DVD drive dead and only have USB 1

[1 Ghz flat-panel iMac with USB 1 ports (no USB 2) and also Firewire 400]
I noticed a strange discrepancy (small but concerning) between the size of a folder on hard drive (folder of all mp3's with no subfolders) and the backup of the same folder on a mounted thumb drive.
(The size difference was not due to any invisible .DS_Store files and both folders are displayed in List view format.)
Disk Utility reports three things:
1. Incorrect number of thread records
2. Volume Bit Map needs minor repair
3. Checking volume information.
Volume free block count",0) [I might have mangled this line]
(It should be 13438611 instead of 13437937)
Here is the GOOD (but these are useless as explained under the "Bad"):
- I have a Tiger 10.4 boot DVD for a repair ==>but see below
- I also have a Disk Warrior disk (never used)
Here is the BAD:
- My built-in optical drive [Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105] is -- I now discover - defunct and DEAD - it does not run the Tiger Boot DVD (in pristine shape).
- I bought an external SuperDrive (unopened) but I believe no boot from USB 1 is possible in PowerPC so a SuperDrive with USB 1 is useless.
Questions:
1.) Is there any way to boot from some external source (optical drive is DEAD) to run Disk Utility and/or Disk Warrior? -- I see none in this case! (gulp).
2.) More importantly (and this is my fundamental concern): Do the three Disk Utility hard drive issues constitute any direct threat to the integrity of my files?
I have almost everything backed up to duplicate thumb drives over these many months as standard practice.
Are these Disk Utility errors fully isolated to hard drive directory-keeping...or do these directory damage errors pose the possibility of mangling or harming my files or their metadata (filesize, etc.).
Put another way, when files are backed-up from a hard drive under the Disk Utility reports above, do they remain unharmed and undamaged by the situations reported by Disk Utility?
Thanks,
Bill

Jeff and Michael,
Thank you both for your generous and thoughtful input.
Michael: As I slept on it overnight, the exact same idea occurred to me of trying a Target Mode to the iMac from my Lion MacbookPro (I have it but stupidly have yet to use it much!).
I did buy a Firewire 800 (MBP) to Firewire 400 (iMac) adapter cable a few months ago!
CONCERN: Would there be potential compatibility issues or risks in running Lion 10.7's Disk Utility against the hard drive of the old OSX 10.4 iMac in Target Disk Mode?
==> Assuming an "it's ok" answer to the Target Disk question, would the majority of users agree that the Target Disk Mode would be more prudent than running:
fsck -fy in Single User Mode
I have never done fsck -fy before especially because I was under the impression there were issues with Journaled drived but from what I have read today...it looks ok to do)
Jeff: Can't thank you enough for the reference to the OTW DVD drive. I might first invest $10 in one of those DVD lens cleaner disks that I've read about. It's probably not the issue or else why would the drive read commercial Music cds perfectly well!
Thanks,
Bilil

CD/DVD Drive Dead

Hey everyone,
My CD/DVD Drive is dead. Trying to reinstall the OS 10.6.
My Drive is dead, takes the disk, makes lots of grinding, and does nothing but spit it out. May have recognized it once out of 20 times, but failed during the install.
I thought about using the Remote Install OSX like you would for a MacBook Air, but it seems that the Mini doesn't have the options for WiFi or network when booting holding option on the Mini so that seems to be out.
Anyone have any experience with this? I was thinking that I could use an External USB DVD Drive to install the OS. Does anyone know if that would work?

The drive itself seems to be dead, Doesn't read any CD / DVD's
I haven't tried using a Laser Lens cleaner, usually those are not recommended for Slot load drives, I have also not tried using Compressed Air to blow into the slot.
It would be much more useful to me to have a USB External CD/DVD drive, as I could use that with any of the computers here. I'm just wondering if anyone knows it the Mini would be able to Boot / Install from an external USB Drive.

Dvd drive dead...and MANY more problems

hi there,
I had a bad sector on my hard drive, so i couldn't boot my machine. I had a diskwarrior cd, so i rebuilt the volume. AFter process, the machine restarted, and ejected the cd. I went to put it back in, and pop grrrrr buzz dvd drive crapped out...mechanically. I've restarted a few times since, in verbose mode, and it hangs up waiting for a cd...so i'm guessing the machine needs the diskwarrior cd present to finish the rebuilding job. how ultimately annoying.
i went out and bought, absolutely hesitatingly, a torx set which would open the 'scenester' screws on my tibook. took the optical drive out, and obviously the part that i beleive is unhinged/broken is hidden under a metal surface.
so now here's my thing. all i want is to start my bloody machine again. i rarely use the optical drive int he first place...so i'd consider an external drive. i dont need a fancy superdrive or anything as well. infact i'm skeptical about buying any other model optical drive, as i dont have the capability to install supplementary drivers...as my machine wont boot
i also can't afford the absurd price for the replacement (cw-8121-c), i've seen it a bunch of places for 200$USD. I'm a dead broke recent student. I'm fairly sure if i can't find a solution for under 50$ then it's over with apple and I.
So basically what this is, is a general call for anything sensical. I'm open to any suggestions anyone may have, and my gawd would i be thankful. I started as a mac person 15 years ago, but with my horrible track record im moving to 'indifferent' person status.
thanks in advance!

You could try this one on eBay perhaps, it's a risky one but it's no money so it may be worth it.

B550 DVD drive dead?

I have an Ideacentre B550 All-in-One Touch desktop computer and suddenly the DVD drive stopped working. I can not read nor write anything (CD and DVD).
I've tried the solution from MS (http://support.microsoft.com/mats/cd_dvd_drive_problems) but all I get is report that the drive is not readable and "not fixed" status.
I also wanted to reinstall drivers but could not find the drivers on the Lenovo support site.
Can I try something else or does this mean that the drive is really dead?

Hi Avalx,
Welcome to Lenovo Community!
As per the query we understood that you are facing issue with DVD drive not working in your B550 desktop.
As you have mentioned that DVD drive not reading or writing, check in BIOS if the DVD drive is detected: go to BIOS, select boot option and check if the DVD drive is in the list.
Also check if the DVD drive has power by pressing the eject button and observing the drive activity light.
Also try to check with different CD/DVD s. Also try to clean the DVD tray and check for the issue. Make sure the DVD is seated after cleaning.
Hope this helps. Do post back if issue persists!
Best regards,
Ashwin.S
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DVD drive Dead?

Hello all,
I have a Sunblade 1000 that came with no DVD drive. I found a drive on eBay, model 390-0025. I installed it, however it doesn't seem to be getting any power. I see no lights during boot, and nothing happens when I press the eject button. The system came with a smart card reader also, and I don't see any lights for that either during boot, but I'm not sure I should.
My hardware knowledge with Sun equipment is pretty limited, but it would seem that even if the SCSI id was incorrect or I had some other configuration problem the tray should open.
Just looking for things I can check before telling the seller that the drive is DOA.
thanks!

The removable media bay has a pass-through power cord that attaches to the systemboard.
Perhaps that connection has been accidentally unplugged from the systemboard.
Even though that's a SCSI DVD-ROM drive,
is has a familiar 4-pin Molex connector for power.
Test the optical drive in your PC.
Connect a power plug to it and boot the PC.
Even without an attached data cable,
it should react to a probe of power during the PC's POST.

How do I know if my iMac CD/DVD drive dead?

Hi,
I haven't been able to burn a CD or DVD in awhile but I kept chalking it up to using the wrong discs. I have a 2010 iMac (using OS X 10.7.5.) and it's able the READ CDs and DVDs When I try to BURN a DVD, it goes through all the motions. But once it's almost done verifying it, it says that "This disc can’t be verified and might be unreliable. Try again using a new blank disc (error code 0x80020063)." And I know it was a NEW disc. THoughts?
My AppleCare expired one month ago. : (
Should I just get an external drive? If so, what kind do you recommend?
Thank you.

Hi, what brand media are you using?
You might try one of those head cleaning Discs, R & W use different voltages & circuits.
Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
In fact, do 3 in a row, takes a bit of time.

How can i restore from Recovery Disk if my notebook's hard drive and dvd drives are dead.

Hi. Good day. My hard drive just crashed and im trying to restore from my restore disks. Unfortunately, my dvd is dead too. I copied the recovery disks to a new hard drive and tried booting from a flash drive but the noteebook is still giving me the SMART hd error message. Please help. Thanks.

Hi,
If you have, or can borrow an external CD/DVD drive it would be worth trying this although I'm not certain your notebook will support booting from a drive connected via USB.
Another option may be to see if you can find a second hand optical drive on somewhere like Ebay - the drives compatible with your notebook can be found on Page 59 of your Maintenance & Service Guide. It may even be worth removing a re-seating your existing drive just in case this helps as described in this section.
Does the drive show up in Device Manager? If it does, right click it and select Properties. Select the driver tab and see if there is an error code in the status box.
Regards,
DP-K
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****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
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Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

Satellite L310-D4010: OS has become dead slow while using the CD/DVD drive

Dear all,
I has bought Toshiba Satellite L310-D4010 at chennai, India.
It has 2GB RAM and 1.83 GHz Intel Core2 Duo Processor.
But my system has become *dead slow* while i am using the optical drive i.e., when i am writing a disk and copying the content form the disk.
I was not able to open any application while i am using the DVD drive.
Please guide me to resolve this problem.
Thanking you.

For me it is also logic that notebook performance goes down when I copy a lot of data. To be honest when I use some burning application to save data on CD or DVD I leave it running till the end and avoid usage of other applications while burning procedure is active. All I do at the same time is surfing in Internet.
I cannot imagine you are not able to start some applications. Maybe notebook needs some more time to start application but it must work.
At the end I must say that 2 GB RAM for Vista notebook is for me really the minimum and if possible I recommend you to upgrade RAM if possible. This notebook model is not known to me and max RAM for this model is not known to me but I presume the 4 GB should not be the problem.

Dealing with dead cd/dvd drive

So my cd/dvd drive seems to be completely dead. I purchased a Sony dvd rewritable drive (DRX-830UL-T). But, duh, the included software I need to install to get it going (apparently Toast 6 Lite) is on CD, and of course, my drive doesn't recognize anything now.
Anyplace I can get the download online, given that now I've paid for it, so I can get to writing my DVDs again?
Thanks for any suggestions.
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.3)

Toast won't help read CDs/DVDs, it's only for burning. Try installing the Patchburn driver.
cheers
mrtotes

CD/DVD Drive is Dead - Unable to feed, Unable to Eject

I believe the symptoms started when I was trying to feed a Costco photo CD or DVD into the iMac, and it would just keep ejecting it out.
When I try to insert something now, there's no noise, no grabbing of the disc, and no inserting. It's like hitting a wall once it's inserted about half way.
I am pretty sure there's nothing in the iMac CD/DVD drive right now... but either way, when I hold the Eject button on start up, or when I hold the left click on startup, nothing happens.
It the motor or the drive dead? How do I diagnose the problem?
Appreciate the help!

1) No. Since it won't work in OS 9, either, it is most likely a hardware issue. Apple says to use a straightened paperclip to open the drive manually. I'm not sure that "something sharp" wouldn't damage the drive mechanism, since a straightened paperclip is not sharp.
2) It's probably going to take a new (or used) drive. You can find one at PowerBook Tech. They also have instructions for replacing it, but it's not an easy thing to do. (You could also maybe find one on eBay.)
Another set of instructions for replacing the optical drive can be found at iFixit. iFixit also has the drive available for purchase, but it's more expensive there.
If you don't want the Combo drive, a CD-ROM or DVD drive can probably be had for less money. eBay may have some really good buys from people parting out their iBooks. Look for somebody with a good feedback profile.
Good luck.

CD/DVD Drive seems dead

I have an IMac G4 flat panel. When I insert any type of disc -- DVD/ROM, music CD -- nothing happens. No whirring, no spitting out discs, no error messages. Just silence, and no disc icon on the screen. Is the drive dead? Is there any solution short of replacing it?

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions all,
To rule out a software issue can you boot the iMac from the OS X install disc?
cheers
mrtotes

CD/DVD drive is dead (+ some more)

My CD/DVD combo drive is dead, and I'm looking for a do-it-yourself fix.
Some important notes (maybe):
-It started with a CD getting stuck in the tray during one of my many logic board freezes. When I restarted the computer, the CD wouldn't come out, so I opened it by putting something sharp into that little hole. After that it won't respond.
-It doesn't work when rebooting into OS 9
-The open-button on the keyboard doesn't respond at all, and no icon comes up on the screen when I press it.
From what I've read elsewhere, apple-support claims that the last two points means that the drive is dead and gone, and I need to replace it.
BUT...it seems strange to me that the drive would suddenly stop working when I used that hole to open the tray. Can it really destroy the drive to use that way of opening it? And what about that logic board freeze that started it all? Can that potentially ruin the drive? Or could this be a software problem?
As for the logic board issues, Apple's answer has always been "replace the enitre board". Later it turns out that it's only a few connections gone bad, and you can actually fix it for much cheaper than what Apple suggests. Actually, you can fix it youself for free. So could it be the same way with the CD-drive? That Apple tells people to change the drive, while there might be an easier and cheaper fix?
So to sum up:
1) Could the CD/DVD issue be a software-issue, despite the fact that the button is unresponsive and that it also won't work in OS 9? If so, how can I fix it? Are there any drivers I can try to re-install?
2) If this is a hardware-problem, is it possible to fix it yourself? Like, opening up the computer and connect what needs to be connected? If anyone knows of a DIY-guide, please give me a link.
And last, just a suggestion:
I think the apple-support forum should start using 'stickies'. It would help alot of people, and also take some load of from the staff.
There are DIY-fixes (that really work) for the following:
- logic board freezes
- dead trackpad
- dead screen
- CD reading-issues
....and probably more.
Would be nice if you could gather all these DIY fixes as stickies on the top of each forum-list, cause right now it's kind of hard to find anything helpfull without having to ask. And I see that you keep refering to earlier posts over and over again, so why not just make stickies of them?
Thanks.

1) No. Since it won't work in OS 9, either, it is most likely a hardware issue. Apple says to use a straightened paperclip to open the drive manually. I'm not sure that "something sharp" wouldn't damage the drive mechanism, since a straightened paperclip is not sharp.
2) It's probably going to take a new (or used) drive. You can find one at PowerBook Tech. They also have instructions for replacing it, but it's not an easy thing to do. (You could also maybe find one on eBay.)
Another set of instructions for replacing the optical drive can be found at iFixit. iFixit also has the drive available for purchase, but it's more expensive there.
If you don't want the Combo drive, a CD-ROM or DVD drive can probably be had for less money. eBay may have some really good buys from people parting out their iBooks. Look for somebody with a good feedback profile.
Good luck.

I need to reload system software on G5 tower but DVD drive is dead ...

My G5 tower won't boot. It hangs up just as the blue progress bar reaches all the way to the right. I'm sure I need to reload the system software, but the DVD drive is also on the fritz and I can't use it. I put an old G4 TiBook into target disc mode, hooked it up to the G5, held the option key down at startup and I was able to get the G5 to boot – so I'm sure the hard drive is not dead.
Any suggestions? How can I use an apple system DVD disc and reload the software? Is there another way? I looked at some old G4s I have lying around, thinking I would pull a drive out of there and use it, but it just looked too hard to do. Is there a way to use Carbon Copy Cloner? I have free firewire drive space. Can I just copy the system file from the G4 TiBook onto the G5?
Sorry, I can't tell you the OS, I think it's 10.4.?, but I forget!

reboot the G5 from the Ti target disk, slip the DVD in when you hit the desktop, tell it to reboot from the DVD - open the install OS X icon from the disc, enter pw & click restart.
another thing you might try is imaging the dvd to a firewire drive or partition on the Ti book... backup the tibook first if you resort to that.

Pavilion Laptop dv6-1230 DVD CD RW drive dead.

In lieu of shipping the computer to HP for warranty repair, Is it possible to get a warranty replacement from HP and swap it out myself. It would certainly be less costly to HP to just send me a new drive.
I'm have tech skills, but no experience with laptop repairs. Is DVD drive replacement an easy task on this product?
How do I apply to HP for a replacement drive, i.e.. what documentation or testing info might they require? The drive is: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7561s
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man......

Is CD/DVD drive dead ?

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