It looks like my MBP optical drive is dead - arg!

I have a Macbook Pro - circa 2006. This one does not have apple care.
I've got a blank cdr stuck inside it. As near as I can tell the macbook
does not even know it has a cd/dvd drive anymore. The drive is spinning,
but the OS does not see a disk. Nothing in disk utility. Holding down
mouse button or eject key does nothing. Trying drutil seems to do nothing.
Choosing about this mac tells me there no Disc Burning device was found.
Arg.
I don't burn things on this machine often, so it is not critical, but is nice to have. The geniuses I run into seem to know less than the people here. I guess I should give them a try, but I'm already afraid of what they'll estimate for repair.
I'm thinking just buy an external cd/dvd drive/burner would be a good option for this machine. Any specific suggestions? Anything more I should try before I throw money at it?
The other issue is, I hate wasting battery spinning a disk the machine cannot seem to see. Do I have to open the machine up (or pay somebody to do it) to turn
off the defective internal drive?
Is there a reasonably priced internal (or external) drive that would be recognised by the system should I have to reload or update the OS at some point?
Thanks for your help.

It may be something of a long shot, but you might check to see that DVD player is still in your applications folder. Also, you could try verifying both permissions and the disk, and repair if necessary. I don't know if that will help, but it won't hurt anything. It may even be worth trying to reinstall the OS, just in case it has somehow gotten corrupted and is not recognizing the optical drive. It might be worth booting from your install disc and navigate to Disk Utility and see if you can see the optical drive then.
It's also possible that one of the cables to the optical drive has come undone and needs to be reseated.
On the other hand, I have been reading about optical drive problems on this forum for some time, and some people thing the internal optical drive is just not of the best possible quality. So investing in a good external optical drive may not be a bad strategy.
Good luck!

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Why my MBP optical drive left to work after upgrade lyon ?

why my MBP optical drive left to work after upgrade lyon ?
somethinh about firme ware ?
i need a solucion and a explanation
becouse before the upgrade works perfect ?
somebody have´s the same problem !
i wiil go to the deep whit that , i dont like gifth my money to people selling bad products!!

haha! my native language?
if you only speak English I guess, but hey that part of the superdrive stopped working on my MacBookPro, when I did the upgradre to Lyon? so they understand or not?
thanks.

MBP Optical Drive not reading cds or dvds + LaunchDaemons not in Library

Late 2008 MBP, 4gb, ram 2.66ghz, Mountain Lion 10.8.4
Hey this is my first time using this forum but I'm not computer illiterate so please don't waste my time!
My optical (disk) drive in my Late 2008 MBP is not reading dvds or cds.
I repaired disk permissions to no avail.
I had read another thread on this issue saying I could opene my library to see if i could find and delete com.WD.WDDDriveServices.plist. which I had seen had worked for others who had had a 1tb WD external drive and had had their disk drives stop working because of this. However, when I went into my library the LaunchDaemons folder which was supposed to contain this erroneous file LaunchDaemons was not even there! Is LaunchDaemons called something else on Mountain Lion or what? I went through all my plist files and could not locate com.WD.WDDDriveServices.plist. anywhere! It is my hope that if i can find and delete this file that I may be able to reboot and have a working disk drive again!
(note)
I could play DVDs but not CDs up until I upgraded to mountain lion 10.8.4, but after the mountian lion upgrade now even DVDs won't work.
Can anybody help me resolve this issue with the Missing LaunchDaemons folder, or have another suggestion beyond repairing disk permissions or deleting com.WD.WDDDriveServices.plist. to make my optical drive work
I am hoping can resolve the main issue at hand which is my optical drive, but also any help on locating LaunchDaemons would be appreciated.
(I know there has been a few threads on this topic, believe me I've practically read them all, for most repairing disk permissions worked, for others who had a wd 1tb external hard drive (like me) deleting com.WD.WDDDriveServices.plist. worked, but that isn't an option at this moment since i cant even find LaunchDaemons in my Library lol.
PS.
Please don't be a smartass and say get a new optical drive, I know my MBP is old but I think the problem is not really with the hardware but rather with this absent LaunchDaemons folder.
Thanks in advance.

Likely not. Your next step is a call to AppleCare or a visit to a repair center.

MBP Optical Drive, clicking and spinning wildly

I just received my new MBP yesterday and discovered a problem with the optical drive. When I insert a CD the drive makes a series of loud clicking noises, presumably as it tries to mount the media on the spindle, and then starts spinning up and out of control, sounding much like an airplane. Some data can be read and then it fails.
I tested with another CD, same problem. I then tested with a DVD, and it actually did fire up and play, and didn't quite sound like an airplane, however there was still a very noticeable hum which is loud enough to still be deemed unacceptable.
After trolling the forums here, it sounds as though other individuals are indeed having the same problem. I have tried various suggested resolutions from other posts with no luck. Unfortunately there is no genius bar close to me, so I am probably going to be stuck sending it back which is just a major disappointment since I was counting the minutes till my MBP arrived.
Update: For what it's worth... in both cases, the discs do not appear to be getting damaged.

I had a macbook that the optical drive needed to replaced for similar reasons. I would strongly recommend you visit the apple store and/or go apple support and ask them to replace your optical drive. Its a pretty quick install for them.
Please remember to mark helpful/solved replies appropriately.

MBP optical drive enclosure kit?

I removed my optical drive from my MBP and installed a second hard drive. I now have the optical drive but need an enclosure for the drive. I am looking for the kit that can be powered via USB 2.0 and doesn't require a secondary power source. My MBP is a 2009 model (15"). The optical drive is labeled as SUPER 868A, manufactured October 2009. The model is UJ868A. I believe it is an SATA connection (the port is a rectangle with two L posts end-to-end inside the rectangle.
I need to be directed to an enclosure kit that I can buy. Obviously I am looking to use this drive with the kit and keep the price below what it would cost me to go to the store and buy a complete external, USB powered optical drive.

By far the best external optical drive case I have found is here: http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_I D=186
The MCE external case is a real POS from what I have read.

What is the disc utility supposed to look like with a fusion drive

I have bought a brand spanking new iMac 2013 with a fusion drive. I had a bit of a glitch with the set up of boot camp. I have taken it to the apple service centre and they reformated the drive. But I am no expert but it seem as though the computer is really slow, even slower than my 2009 iMac. can any one tell me what the fusion drive should look like in the disc utility? It appears as two seperate drives!? is this right? Can some one please help me?

Restoring my MBP optical drive firmware

Hello. I had mistakenly used Nero Drive Speed in Bootcamp's Windows XP to change the speed of my optical drive upon the advice of someone on another forum, but this has ruined my drive's firmware. Here is a link to a photo of the original specs of my firmware: http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd225/KellySt10/infomymacdvddrive.png
and the drive's firmware specs after using Nero Drive Speed: http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd225/KellySt10/specsofmyopticaldrive.png
How can I restore my drive's firmware to the way it was originally?
Thanks in advance.
PS This is a brand-new MBP, ordered after the WWDC expo in June (actually ordered it July 7, 2009) of 2009. My family is upset after I told them that I might have to replace the drive, and I'm upset with myself.
Message was edited by: K515

Apple provides firmware restoration CD images for Intel machines (search Support), but it is a machine restore, and I don't know what that does specifically (if anything) about the DVD firmware. The DVD's have their own onboard firmware (RPC-2, as they encode/enforce region information at the drive level, not the system level), and it has been years since firmware images (or hacked versions thereof) have been available (MPAA and others took care of that).
Only suggestion I have is to call AppleCare and ask them. You can bring your machine in to an Apple Store for a system firmware restore, so perhaps they can also do that for the DVD (or point you to the appropriate resource on the Support web site to do it yourself).

MBP Optical Drive Speeds...

I have a MacBook Pro 2.33GHz (Core2) with a HL-DT-ST-DVDRW GWA4080MA (AE38). I've been noticing that this drive is pretty **** slow. Since I couldn't find benchmarking programs for Mac, I ran Nero CD/DVD speed tests in Windows XP (BootCamp).
CD Read = 8x
DVD Read = 1.1x
CD Burn (using different brand discs at 40x and 52x) = 8x (to start, but slowed down as it progressed)
I am an Apple fan, but for $2500, I should not have an optical drive that's only slightly faster than my iBook from 2001. What gives?

Interestingly enough, tried another 52x using Toast rather than the finder. It had me at 10x, eventually going to 11x, eventually jumping to 20x, and then flip-flopped from 20x to 21x for the remainder of the 700mb burn. Really. Is this normal? Am I seeing a normal 24x Superdrive (CD-R) at work here? My PowerMac G5's burner seems faster and it, too, is rated at 24x.
Pretty soon, I'll be racing my MBP against another MBP of the same model and see what's up.

MBP Optical Drive / HD Noise

Hello, my MacBook Pro seems to be making a low pitched helicopter/car engine running noise , it comes from the right corner (below the palm rest area)
Im quite sure it is the optical drive because today for the first time since having the computer i burned a DVD.
Now every 10minutes or so the noise will start (for no reason) and this 'helicopter spinning' noise will continue for about another 2minutes and then stop again.
I think have heard the 'moo' sound described before on these forums, and i am sure this is different.
Has anyone had this problem? The noise is very loud and interferes with my work (my MBP whines but it is very quiet, this is much louder)
I am in the process of talking to Apple support, but if anyone on here has any help please do reply.
MacBook Pro 15" 1.83Ghz 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Latest Firmware - Burnt many CD's before, but this issue seems to have come from burning a DVD

I am still having this issue, and i have posted a recording of the noise.
Please go to: http://www.phantomfiles.co.uk/macbookpronoise.mp3 to hear my recording.
(You may need to turn your volume up, as the recording level isnt a good quality, but the actual noise is quite loud)
Your advise on this would be much appreciated

Just got back from the Apple Store...optical drive officially dead

I just got back from the Apple Store, which confirmed what I feared all along. I received my MBP C2D over the holidays and was worried when it had trouble booting up several times. After trying to burn a few cds (some would quit, others worked fine), and a few discs that refused to read or eject I visited the boards to find out that issues with the Matshita UJ 587 were widespread. At this point my computer does not even recognize the ATA or Disc Burning hardware or the OSX disc inside. The only positive to come out of this is the customer service offered by Apple. I took the computer to the genius bar and the computer refused to boot up after the tech installed an OSX disc (hence the stuck cd inside). They are giving me a new computer since this one is brand new, but unfortunately I will have to order it from Apple Care since it is a custom job. For all of you out there with early MBP C2D optical drives that are acting up I feel your pain. Get your computer into an Apple store before the problem gets worse, these optical drives are awful.
Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thank you. After 2 hours on the phone with Apple Care this morning they finally confirmed what the Mac Genius told me last night. The computer was shipped back this afternoon and I'll post again if there's any trouble with the new unit, I think I just got a lemon with this one...too bad. This is my first Mac so I'm really trying hard to stay positive.

Is my MBP optical drive going bad?

I think my late 2006 MBP 17" DVD drive might be going bad.
Symptom: Every once in a while it freezes while playing back a movie and I have to hit the forward button in DVD Player to get it moving again. This has happened now with several different DVDs.
Anybody else ever see that before? Is that a symptom of imminent failure?
Thanks,
doug

There is no physical contact, Doug, but there is a lens that even a single speck of dust can stop from focusing the laser beam properly. It is open to the atmosphere (through the drive slot) and has the potential to pick up anything that happens to have collected on the DVDs that you insert or on the lining of the "slot" that you introduce it through.
Film from cigarette smoke, cooking or industrial pollution can cause problem with such things long, long before the three years that you have had your MBP, too.
You can buy cleaning discs intended for both "standalone" DVD players (like the ones you hook up to your TV) or for computer drives (though many of these are Windows specific) . They are essentially a DVD with small brush attached. Personally I usually use one that is intended for standalone DVD players, and simply play it using the DVD Player software that comes with every Mac. Mine came from the local supermarket! Works like a dream. Living in a mud brick house with wood fires I discovered the value of cleaning discs for myself very early on in the "optical disc" era!
Cheers
Rod

MBP Optical Drive Problems

I have a Macbook Pro running Mavericks, bought approximately a year ago (out of warrenty) Its imacculately looked after and rarely leaves my desk. A few months ago the dvd drive suddenly stopped loading discs even new ones! I updated my software to current one and it seemed to work again - not sure if this is a coincidence. Its suddenly stopped working again and im starting to get really annoyed after all it was over £1400. It sounds like its trying to read the disc but just ejects it after a few spins. I dont really want to take it to Apple as i need it for my studies. Any suggestions would be appreciated, Hopefully a reboot or something will help. I have no idea about this at alll. Thanks

If it currently isn't work then there is nothing you can do to damage it anymore than it already is. So give the cleaning disc a try. If it still fails to work then it is more than likely dead. If that is the case, it is dead, then you have 2 options.
1) Take the system int an Apple store and have them replace the DVD drive, IE The Superdrive. Cost around $120.
2) Buy any brand external DVD drive, Except the Apple External Superdrive, that connects by USB port and it will work on your Mac.
NOTE:
The Apple brand External Superdrive (DVD drive) does not work with Mac computers that orignally came with a built in DVD drive. It is solely meant for use on Mac computers that did not original have built in DVD drives. The Air, Retina and newest iMac models.

MBP Optical Drive is Region Locked Prematurely

I've just arrived in the US for a six month work stint and purchased some DVDs to view on my laptop. I was dismayed to find that my system tells me the drive is now locked (to Region 4 I assume) and I can't play Region 1 DVDs. Now I know for absolute certain that I had 2 or maybe even 3 switches left before locking.
This system of locking the drives annoys the &^%^ out of me, but that niggle aside, does anyone know why I've lost the normal Apple sanctioned ability to flip my regions at least a couple more times?
Any help appreciated,
Peter.

Probably a bad switch or chip on the drive itself. Not sure what you're going to be able to do about it though.
Best bet would probably be to use an alternative player like VLC Player, which will ignore region codes. Apple kind of has to play by the MPAA rules with their bundled DVD player, but VLC Player is open source, and so has quite a bit more latitude. Especially with a number of court rulings in their favor.

Ok, looks like upgrading my G4 1.25 GHz PB is out

I've been reading everything I can find here and it looks like my PowerBook optical drive won't work with the Leopard DVD. The drive is a ComboDrive and is a Matsushita CD-RW CW-8123.
OTOH, I haven't seen anything about the SuperDrive in my G5 iMac (yet): Matsushita DVD-R UJ-845
I did notice that Matsushita drives have more reported failures than Pioneer drives, though that may be be because there are fewer Pioneer drives out there.

I strongly doubt that it's happening for even a major fraction of the people who have systems with this model of drive or, given now many have the model of drive, the large majority of people with PowerBooks would be unable to install Leopard, though of course it's early in the release of Leopard so we don't know how many people have tried. Whether nor you you'd have a problem I can't say with certainty, but I'd bet that all would go smoothly for you if your drive is having no problems reading DVDs now (if it can read the Tiger DVD, chances are high it would read the Leopard DVD as well). Up to you, though; unless there's something in Leopard that you badly need or want, there's little penalty in waiting (we may find that it's nothing more than just a run of badly-pressed disks).
I'm beginning to think that PPC machines (and possibly early Intel) should be left at Tiger, and only fairly recent Intel machines should use Leopard.
For what it's worth, I have or know of a number of older systems that have Leopard installed and that are working without problems, so I don't think it's related to older/newer systems per se.

Dead hard drive or Dead ata bus?

I think I just had my internal ata boot drive die, but I'm not sure if it's the drive or the bus. When I boot from the install disc and do System Profiler it doesn't even show the hard drive ATA Bus, it only shows the dvd drive ATA Bus. If I remove the hard drive and reboot to the install disc, it does show both ATA Buses. Could that be a short in the hard drive?
Now I'm looking at my backups, and to add insult to injury it looks like my main backup drive is dead, too! My most recent backup on a different drive is two months old. Aaagh! I just lost thanksgiving and christmas photos. I've had nothing but problems with my two western digital drives - not using them again.

Hi, Paul -
If I remove the hard drive and reboot to the install disc, it does show both ATA Buses. Could that be a short in the hard drive?
A failed hard drive can sometimes take down the ATA bus it is connected to, or even take down all ATA buses (the latter happened to me one time).
...it looks like my main backup drive is dead, too!
If it hasn't taken the bus down, the data on it may be salvageable at reasonable expense. There's a couple of utilities available designed to recover data from drives that are mechanically sound, but which refuse to mount for some reason; both have try-before-you-buy demo modes -
Data Rescue
Virtual Lab
If the backup drive was on the same bus as the boot drive discussed previously, you may need to change its jumpers in order for it to be recognized again. Western Digital drives often have a third jumper position, Single, which is to be used when the drive is the only device on the bus (on those drives, Master is used when there is also a Slave present).

It looks like my MBP optical drive is dead - arg!

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