Mac Mini Optical Drive problems

Hi, I've been working on a Mac Mini G4 that has been giving me quite the problems. The first problem was the original slot load drive would not accept any cds, the piece that holds the cd in place once it is loaded is stuck up even though there is no cd in the drive.
To correct this issue I ordered an almost exact replacement from ebay. (original is UJ-845-c 678-0503G replacement is UJ-845-c 678-0503D). The drive installed with no problems and accepts cds with ease. The problem is is that the drive does not detect and the eject button the keyboard does not function. I was able to get it to eject the cd once by holding down the mouse button while shutting down, but that has yet to work again. (I've tried a dvd and a cd so far, no luck with either). Also, it does not give the option to boot off the cd-rom drive when I boot up with the option key pressed.
I'm running out of ideas here and any help would be greatly appreciated!

The ebay unit may have been junk. Why not get a FireWire external optical drive?

Similar Messages

Mac mini optical drive ejecting discs

Hello, All
I'm using a Mac mini late 2006 model (1.83GHz Intel Core Duo, 1GB RAM, Snow Leopard 10.6.1) and a few days ago the machine started ejecting optical discs without reading/mounting them. Once a disc is inserted, the machine whirs a but and then ejects the disc.
The problem affects all discs - blank CD, DVD, published CD and DVD.
Can anyone offer any help as to why? I've not had any problems with the optical drive before and have used it reasonably regularly because prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard and plugging in an external hard drive to use Time Machine, I was using Back Up - which obviously requires me to use the optical drive.
I must say I'm a bit confused as to why. The machine has not been dropped or even moved since the drive has gone from functioning to not working. I keep my software up to date. I have heard that Snow Leopard seems to be causing the odd strange issue but not come across this one. The drive has functioned properly since the SL install a month or so ago.
Any help or advice is really welcome.
One last thing (sorry!), and this is probably completely unrelated but I thought I'd mention it so that all info is out there. A couple of weeks ago (also post-SL install) my wireless Mighty Mouse stopped functioning properly. It wasn't the batteries or dirt, etc. I could move the pointer around the screen but just not click on anything. I thought at first that the Finder had crashed but upon using a replacement mouse, it became apparent what the problem was. I tried re-booting, switching the mouse off and on, the usual stuff. Few days later, I tried the Mighty Mouse again and it worked fine.
Thanks in advance, all.
Matt

Hi there
Apologies for the delay in coming back here, been kind of busy.
I tried the canned air solution and unfortunately, it didn't work. However, having spoken to a number of people about this since my posting and the help posted to this forum, using the canned air generally comes highly recommended because it usually does solve such problems.
So, I've also looked for a cleaning disc and am still searching (to be fair, I've not yet looked very hard) but the problem seems to be that most stores sell cleaning discs designed for drives with a CD tray, rather than the slot loading mini approach (which also has fabric to held clean the disc on its way in, rather negating the benefit of using any fluid or gel on the disc).
I'm going to keep looking and will post back here to let you know if I have any luck or not. Do try the canned air solution - it may work, also please post to let us know if you solve it or not. I fear that there's a proper problem with the drive...
Good luck and thanks, All. Will post again.
Regards,
Matt

Mac Pro optical drive problems

I have a 2009 Mac Pro and have been having problems with optical drives I've installed in the lower bay. I initially installed a Toshiba drive that had Lightscribe technology, as I needed this for my wife's business and my Lacie external Lightscribe drive finally died. This drive worked great except for a loud "click, click" noise that it made every few minutes when not in use. I had originally attributed this noise to a hard drive starting or stopping but after repeated attempts to isolate the drive were unsuccessful, I resorted to using my old mechanic's stethescope and the noise seemed to be coming from the lower optical drive. I confirmed this by opening its tray and leaving it open which got rid of the noise. It was a very annoying noise, easily heard in my bedroom across the hall when the machine was asleep (and I wasn't). I decided to change it out for a Blu-Ray drive as the prices had come down out of the stratosphere. I bought a Pioneer drive from OWC and after having it disappear and reapper on me, behavior verified as a problem by checking these boards, I exchanged it for an LG unit. This one works fine and seems to stay recognized by the Apps that use it but a "click" is back. This occurs with about the same frequency as the Toshiba but is a single click and is much quieter. There is no periodic noise from the factory Superdrive. Someone suggested somewhere that this could be caused by Spotlight trying to access the drive. This doesn't seem logical as the noise only happens when there is no disk mounted. Would there be any software that would periodically "ping" the optical drive, even when the system was asleep? I can live with the noise from this one but am still curious if others have had this problem, and may have come up with a solution. Thanks, Ted
The drive installed now is an LG model number: WH12LS39KMP, the previous noisy drive was a Toshiba SH-S223

Repeated starting and stopping hard drives is not a good idea, and should be limited to laptops running on battery power. With most, the heads rub on the discs while starting or stopping. Drives specs usually allow only 25,000 to 50,000 starts. Temperature changes between running and sleeping puts stress on electronics, and can cause earlier failures. Also the starting current stresses the motur circuitry.
Apple optical drives have special firmware. If you look in the "ATA" section of "System Profiler" (Utilities folder) you should see that the Apple supplied drive supports "Low Power Polling". This may be why Apple optical drives don't have problems with drive sleep mode.

New Mac minis' optical drives

Hello, today I've read in German Macintosh magazine, that the new Mac minis (released last month) would include a different optical drive (at least the model with a dvd burner inside) and that this drive would be much louder when reading dvds than the drive in the previous model.
I am really concerned about this issue, because I am looking forward into buying a Mac mini for my living room to hook it up to my TV.
So my question is: Does somebody know about the smaller mac mini model without dvd buring capabilities? Is it more silent or as loud as the model with dvd burner? Is it more silent or louder than the previous model without dvd burner?

Sound from optical drives is often a function of the quality of media. I've stated what you can do to avoid having low quality media in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5262710#5262710
That said, if you find the drive you get is too noisy, you can always put the Mini behind the TV. Just be sure wherever it is put it has enough air circulation so it doesn't overheat. You can get DVI cables as long as 50 feet if you shop around.

What is the brand of optical disk medium to use with mac MINI super drive?

TDK brand of blank optical disk medium on my mac (super drive) is not reading the optical disk I put in there to burn to. The genius at the apple store put in a Memorex brand of optical disk medium and it worked. What is the consensus for buying blank medium that will work with the .mac MINI super drive it seems TDK doesn't work? What is the brand and type to go with?

You need a regular optical digital cable, often called a Toslink, with a 3.5 mm miniplug adapter on the Mac mini end. The port is a combo port. When you insert the optical cable's miniplug into the port, because it is a tiny bit longer than a regular 3.5 mm miniplug, it activates the digital audio. Usually the port's output is analog by default.
Dah•veed

Mac mini optical audio failure

Hi, I ask for help regarding a problem that is affecting me about my Mac Mini 3,1 with Lion 10.7.1 connected to an amp with optical cable Sony HT minitoslink -> toslink.
Until a few days ago, everything has always worked perfectly. In these days, after turning on the mac mini, the audio comes easily to the amp, so I can see DVD movies and MKV in multichannel audio mode. After about 10 minutes, while the video continues, the sound stops. I try to restart the mac mini but the problem remains.
In addition, when i disconnect the optical cable from the amplifier side, the red light is not present. If I link a headphone to macmini or set-up to internal speaker analog audio works fine.
If I turn off the mac mini and power back up after fifteen minutes, the optical digital audio back, but it turns off after 10 minutes.
I tried to connect the cable to another macbook: it works regularly and the red light is turned on regularly for some time.
I did a clean install of Snow Leopard 10.6.7 on a USB drive and unfortunately there are the same audio issues.
In your opinion can be a problem with cable or there is a problem on macmini sound card?
I tried to reset the PRAM and SMC, permission repair, delete audio preferences, but nothing changes.
I also tried the Apple Hardware Test and the Apple Diagnostic Disk and the result is okay.
Can you help me?
Thank you for your attention

Hello, I solved the problem. I moved the Mac mini in a ventilated place, then I turned it on and I put the headphones into the "audio out". I restarted the computer three times, then I put the optical cable and everything works as before!
The CPU temperature was 72 ° C. I used the software smcFanControl and the temperature dropped to 52 ° C. I think the Mac Mini overheats so much. Now is okay, I have seen many movies in Dolby Digital and DTS.
I hope that you solve the problem.
Goodbye!

Programs repeatedly crashing on my late 2012 Mac Mini Fusion Drive

I have a late 2012 Mac Mini Fusion Drive 2.6ghz, 16gig RAM running Mac OSX 10.9.4 . For the past week or so I have had a number of programs - both Apple and third party apps crash repeatedly, I have repaired permissions and restarted numerous times but nothing seems to fix it. For example Mail would crash each time I cancelled a password being accepted by Mail in a particular account, Safari has crashed for various reasons. Apple Motion has also crashed more times in the past day or so than it ever has in the past year. It's crashing when I try to add a point or node to a line in an animation I'm finishing.
Does anybody have any idea why this is happening now and does anybody know how to fix it?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the name of the crashed application or process. For example, if iTunes crashed, you would enter "iTunes" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ User Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of crash reports. The name of each report starts with the name of the process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report related to the process in question. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

Replace mid 2010 mac mini hard drive(s) and thermal sensor(s)

TL;DR: How do I swap SSd for HDD in Mid 2010 Mac Mini without Fan problems.
I'd like to replace both my Mac Mini HDD's with SSD's, but removing/repositioning* the factory thermal sensors will default the fan to full throttle! (I've had this happen on my other mid 2010 test machine). Has anyone successfully swapped out their drives and not had to deal with a system fan on Afterburner mode?
Note: on my test mac mini, I tried SMC fan control as well as SSD Fan Control apps and neither is able to change the fan RPM.
SMC Fan control (this is what I use on my macbook)
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol
SSD Fan Control: (suggested by others with similar thermal sensor/fan problems)
http://exirion.net/ssdfanctrl
* the position of the thermal sensors on the factory hitachi's is apparently important. In a test, I moved one a few millimeters and the fans defaulted to full speed.
Cheers!
Ken

I replace the HD on my 2009 Mini with no fan problems.
From your description I think yo have either a sensor or logic board problem. If the sensor was not attached to the HD and was "cold" then the fan speed would not increase if the HD got hot.
When you played around with sensor position what what the temperature of the sensor when you go the "right" fan speed and the runaway speed.

My mac mini hard drive is failing. I am no longer under warranty. Do you know how much it cost to have Apple replace the hard drive? or How I can replace it myself?

MY mac mini hard drive is failing. I am no longer under warranty. Do you know how much it cost to have Apple replace the hard drive? or How I can replace it myself?

You can do it yourself. I did on my 2009 Mini
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac_Mini
Also, this place sells HSDs and has install videos.
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

Creating Partition in Mac Mini Hard Drive

i Have buy a mac mini a week ago, but before three days ago, some file got corrupted, and it does not start, only the password screen appears, when i entered the password, the screen appears again. and it continues. Now i want to partition the mac mini hard drive. i have only one drive, and i want to create another partition in the hard drive. when i create another partition through the disk utility , i gives error, and cannot create the partition. i acutally want that first i make partition in the hard drive, and after using the "restore from time machine option" to install the mac osx lion in the system. Please help me in make the partition in the hard drive.

Apple themselves don't specify hard drive RPM because they buy a number of different drives, some apparently 4200 some apparently 5400.
It's no surprise that your retailer wants you to buy a G5 though, and is trying to upsell one based on the minis weaknesses - after all, they get more money from a G5 sale than from a mini. They may also be considering your planned use of Photoshop as a stumbling block to effective use of a mini, but the question really is what you intend to use Photoshop to do. If you're a hobbyist, the system is fine and will work more than adequately - particularly if you max out the RAM. If you're a professional user with pro-level expectations, then a mini likely wouldn't be sufficient, not so much due to the drive speed (powerbook users have run Photoshop verisons for years quite happily on what are predominently 4200rpm drives) but because for pro work, Photoshop needs a lot of hard drive space and a great deal of RAM.
On the basis of what you've posted, I'd say your retailer is more interested in their profit than your need. Chances are, if you run PS on the G4 listed in your profile, you're already running on a drive of similar general performance.

2014 mac mini dual monitor problem

I just brought a mac mini (Late 2014) i have two displays monitors connected, one HDMI to DVI. and one thunderbolt to DVI. I can have both thunderbolts connected and the problem its the same, when back from sleep ,one monitor doesn't turn on. i have to disconnect one and then both work, it only happens when the mac goes to sleep. on cold restart or turning the mac on, this problem doesn't occur. any help.

I have this same problem too. I purchased the Mac Mini with the intention of running dual monitors. I'm using the HDMI and mini-display/Thunderbolt to DVI. I've also tried MiniDisplay/Thunderbolt to HDMI and I'm experiencing the same problem as angelfromfullerton. Whenever it tries to wake from sleep, it can't decide on monitor arrangement and keeps flicking between the two, making the OS unusable and forcing a reboot... EVERY TIME. I've also experienced the issue once or twice on a cold boot. It doesn't matter which Thunderbolt port is used either.
I'm going to have to return my Mac Mini unless this problem is fixed asap.
Mac Min, OSX Yosemite (10.10).

Mac Mini with Major Problems

I'll try to make this short, but it is a looonngg problem.
About one month ago my Mac Mini began having problems when I boot up. The computer would freeze on the opening page where I put in my password. My wireless keyboard and trackpad would not work. This would be interminent at first but progressively got worse.
I spent hours on phone tech support. Finally realizing that would not help I drove the 100 mile round trip to the local Apple store for a Genius bar appointment.
The first appointment (there have been 5 - meaning 500 miles) resulted in them doing a clean install of Lion. I took the computer back to the office and guess what, the same problem.
I drove back to the Apple store, the Genius did some more work and proclaimed it fixed. It was, for about 3 days when everything started again.
More time now on tech support. One more trip to the Apple store.
This time they kept the Mac Mini for about 4 days are replaced the logic/mother board.
I got it back to the office on Thursday. Everthing works great.
Until today. I boot the computer, it gets to the screen that has the apple on it - then nothing.
I manually power it down and reboot. Same thing.
I've set up ANOTHER appointment at the Genius bar tomorrow.
My question: can I demand that they replace this machine. Between work and home I have 2 Mac Mini's, a Macbook Pro, a Macbook Air and 2 iPhones. I've never had this type of problem. I'm really tired of this.
I purchased this in February so it is in warranty.
Thanks

rwgleaves wrote:
I took it to the Apple store Genius bar today - my 5th trip - and they did just what I'd hoped. They replaced the Mac Mini with a brand new machine.
This is why I buy Mac/Apple!
Excellent new, sorry you had so much trouble on the way. And yes, Apple Stores are awesome!

External hard drive connected to mac Mini is having problems and won't repair

Hi,
Thanks in advance for any support.
My Mac mini (OS 10.7.5) isn't reading the external drive correctly and sometimes doesn't find it at all. When it does find the drive, some folders which I know to be large show up as empty (not always the same folder, I think). I'm quite sure the drive is having problems and want to repair it, just so it can be stable enough to duplicate (i.e. copy the external).
But it won't repair in Disk Utility because it can't unmount. I tried turning off Spotlight via Terminal, but it still won't unmount. Any suggestions?
Thanks

Hi Linc,
Thanks for the reply.
Do you mean installing it in another enclosure? How easy or difficult is it to move the drive -- and should this be done by a professional?
Thanks

10.6.8 Wifi Mac Mini Core Solo Problems

Hi All,
I have had my beloved Mac Mini core solo (1.5ghz) since 2007 and have had regular upgrades to keep it alive (upgraded hard drive, ram etc.).
A couple of days ago I upgraded the airport card - it previously was only 802.11 a/b/g, but I now have the atheros 9280 802.11 a/b/g/n successfully installed into the machine.
The main reason for doing this is that my previous airport card just never seemed to work at all; I have an iphone and ipad and they both successfully connect to my Orange livebox router with no problems whatsoever, yet my Mac Mini did not connect at all having tried everything I can. Therefore my final solution was to arrange an update of the airport card to the new atheros one suggested by my local Apple dealer.
I brought the Mac home, and tried to attahc to my wifi router to immediate success. It had full signal strength and was working flawlessly. I then turned the machine off, went out for a while and then came home to find it was not working again and kept searching for the wifi router and asking for constant passwords. After a long time, it seemed to work again but after I turned the machine off it lost the settings (depsite me asking network settings to save via the locked button) and I am constantly repeating this process.
I am therefore wondering if anyone can help. The atheros 9280 airport card information is as follows (from the system profiler):
Software Versions:
Menu Extra: 6.2.2 (622.2)
configd plugin: 6.2.5 (625.6)
System profiler: 6.0.1 (601.1)
Network preference: 6.2.2 (622.2)
Aiport Utility: 5.5.3 (553.20)
IO80211 Family: 4.0 (400.40)
Card Type: Airport Extreme (0x168C, 0x8F)
Firmware version: Atheros 9280: 2.1.14.6
Locale: FCC
Country Code: DE
Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n
Supported Channels: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,36,40,44,48,52,56,60,64,100,104,108,112,116,120,1 24,128,132,136,140
Wake on Wireless: Supported
Status: Network Service Inactive
Just to also add that its Snow Leopard 10.6.8, Intel Mac Mini core 1.5ghz solo, and my Orange Wifi router is quite old (around 2006) so supports a/b/g - I was thinking that this may be the fault but why would all my other apple systems have no problems with this connection?
Any help would be really appreciated as I'm going a little nuts here!
fdsbh

Really? I thought Sno was supposed to be more efficient?
I'd say that SL is more efficient on a machine it was made to run on. Apple didn't exclude the single core Intel processor, probably because they didn't have to change their code like they would have for a PPC processor but part of the efficiency is it's ability to split services to the separate cores in the CPU. You only have one, so that part of the improvement is of no use. All of the processes the OS handles and splits to multiple CPU cores are worthless and your programs will just have to wait until the CPU has time for you.
Meanwhile, the programs you are running are more powerful and provide higher quality and really need the extra core. The speed of the ram, the buss, and the hard drive are not as fast as your MacBook either. All of this data has to be moved around quite a bit from the drive to ram and then back to the drive.
Christmas is coming
WinXP will run on a 600Mhz PII processor with 128MB's of PC100 ram, but you wouldn't want to. It's not a lot of fun to work with or work on.
Unless there is some whiz bang program or technology that you need from SL, I'd take the machine back to Leopard or even Tiger, which it probably ran pretty well.

Optical drive problems after upgrade to Tiger 10.4.10

I've just had my machine updated to Tiger 10.4.10 after having two new hard drives installed after a hard drive failure. I'm now having issues with burning data for backup purposes.
I can't burn anything with Mac OS Disc Burner utility, it doesn't seem to recognize blank disc's DVD's or CD's. It keeps telling me to load a disc when one is already in the drive.
System profiler recognizes CD-R's & DVD-R's when they are in the optical drive
I can burn with Toast Titanium ver 6.0.3 DVD's & CD's. The burned CD's will mount. The burned DVD's will not mount.
I have checked the burned DVD's in the optical drive of my iBook G4 Mac OS 10.3.9 and they mount on it fine.
Movie DVD's will mount & play. Software DVD's will mount and load applications.
I have cleaned the drive with a cleaning disc.
The Optical Drive was working fine before the upgrade, so what is the problem?
I can only assume two problems now!
1.) the optical drive has a physical malfunction
2.) there is a software issue between Tiger 10.4.10 & this optical drive (this is my favorite at the moment)
The upgrade was done by an Apple Authorised Service Provider they say there are no issues with Tiger & the optical drive.
So any ideas or help would be much appreciated.
Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model: PowerMac7,2
CPU Type: PowerPC 970 (2.2)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1.5 GB
Bus Speed: 900 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.5f0
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D:
Model: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D
Revision: A606
Serial Number: DBDL909690WL
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D:
Firmware Revision: A606
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2000 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: No

I'm having a similar problem. I bought my G5 with Panther OS on it a few years ago. The DVD drive functioned perfectly back then. Then I upgraded to Tiger this past year which caused the DVD drive to open later..that is, I'd have to hold down the eject button for a good 2 or 3 seconds before it would open or close. Previously it responded instantly. Now what happens more and more is it can't read DVD-ROM disks that it has burned. My imac G4 with Jaguar has no trouble reading the disks but Tiger 10.4.9 and 10.4.10 simply refuse to mount DVD ROM disks that it burned.
I'm trying to make a duplicate DVD of the offending disk on my single-processor G4 and then put THAT disk into the G5 so it can read the info. Hopefully that will be my work-around.
It's got to be a software issue and I keep hoping the Apple wiz kids will put out an update to remedy this. Something's fishy with the DVD drive programming.

Mac Mini Optical Drive problems

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