Optical drive acting up

I have a G5 1.8 with the SONY U10A DVD/CD drive running Tiger 10.4.11.
The drive will play a DVD but not a CD and just kicks it out. I When I try to burn a CD or DVD I get an error message - install a blank disc.
I'm using Fuji discs and up till now have had no problems. I read about the clock battery might be an issue, so I changed it. I'm still having the same problems.

Hi
I have a PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D which is acting up and thought I'd flash the firmware to see if it helps. I've followed the instructions from Steve Boultbee on http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8050896&#8050896
However, when I download the firmware from Pioneer from the page he recommends I only get one of the two files needed. The DVRA06_FW108.EXE expands into a foldercalled "DVRA06_FW108.EXE Folder" which contains 2 files "R6100106.108" & "UPGDVD.exe"
When I run DVRFlash, the result in the terminal is:
./DVRFlash -vf PIONEER R6100106.108
Reading firmware 'R6100106.108'...
firmware is of Normal type (PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D 1.08 )
Drive Information:
Description : PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D
Firmware Rev : A606
Firmware Date : 03/06/17
Manufacturer : PIONEER
Drive is in normal mode.
Additional Drive Information:
Serial Number : CIDL141199WL
Interface type : ATA
DVR generation : 0006
Kernel type : APPLE
Normal type : APPLE
Kernel version : 0000
Status : RPC-2 (region locked)
Region : 2
Changes : 4 region changes remaining
4 vendor resets remaining
state is 'Region set'
Firmware and Drive type mismatch
If you want to convert your drive, you need to supply both Kernel and General
Any ideas why I don't get both the Kernel and General files?

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Optical Drives Acting Up???

I can install software using my optical drives and it seems to be a lot slower than it should be...
Also, when I try to rip iso's of my CDs the drive starts to start up then just stops...
All updated bios and drivers...
Help would be very welcome!
thanks
-j

If your mobo doesn't not have onboard RAID, you'll not see the RAID option available .
LBA is Logical Block Addressing for HDDs with over 136GB of space to be properly detected by the system, it's better to turn the feature on.
Next, please also make sure that you have the MPS version and 1.4 .

Can "Refit" Be Used for USB Boot From External Optical Drive?

Since the new Mac Mini 2011 has no optical drive, how would one make a generic USB 2.0 optical drive act as a boot device? I have heard that a utility called "Refit" can alter the boot loading order and device choices in Macs. I suppose it is also possible that the new Mini may already be set up to boot first from USB. I would appreciate any comments. It would be nice to have some kind of optical drive boot option for Windows installation and other possible utilities that need to boot before the OS in order to work. Maybe I will have to take my external optical drive to an Apple store to find out. Hope not. I also suspect that a USB keyboard will be mandatory for "Refit" and the boot drive to be used before Mac OS X is loaded.

No utility should be needed.
You can hold the Option key down during the boot process to select which drive you wish to use as a boot device.
Also pressing and holding C boots to the optical drive.
There is reportedly a pretty broad number of USB optical drives that people have been able to use as a boot device, as inexpensively as $30. I don't know that there is a specific list though. I would research whichever model you wish to buy with a quick google search or searching that model here in the forum.
Or maybe somebody will have a recommendation which one they have.

How can I install winxp to bootcamp on imac with bad optical drive?

I have a mid-2007 20" aluminum Intel-based iMac and I'm having trouble getting a clean install of MacOS10.5.8 and Win XP (through Bootcamp) on a new drive.
The problem stems from the fact that I have no internal optical drive. My Superdrive began acting up a while ago (couldn't recognize, read from, or write to DVD). I replaced the drive, but the problem persisted. Calling Apple Support, they determined (guessed?) the problem was the logic board, and, as the machine is out of warranty, isn't worth replacing. No big deal - I've been using an external USB optical drive when needed.
However, my hard drive is beginning to experience issues (SMART Failure), and I want to reinstall everything MacOS, Bootcamp/Win XP on a clean new drive. The problem is that I cant resinstall Win XP to Bootcamp without an internal drive (which seems unlikely to ever work). I've tried creating a bootable USB key with the XP installation files going through the Bootcamp installation process using the WintoFlash/rEFIt method, but to no avail (won't recognize boot from USB).
Is it possible to remove the internal hard drive, boot from MacOS (10.5.8) on an external drive, and connect the optical drive to the sATA port where the internal drive was? Or is there a second sATA port on these logic boards? Or can I somehow connect the USB optical drive in a way that the iMAC thinks it's internal? I'm not afraid of digging into the iMAC (changed HDD and Superdrive already).
Is there anyway to test the pATA connection on my logic board to find out if it's really the problem? If it's not, maybe I can install WinXP on a second Windows formated drive, to take the space of the internal Superdrive.
There must be some good ideas out there somewhere. Barring that, my only other option is to use Parallels and take the performance hit that comes with running a virtual machine. UGH!

Actually, when I followed that link, one of the related links in More Like This was a real find! An actual download of Aperture, albeit a trial, but that would have solved my problem too. I tested it and although it's embeded in a support article, the link to the trial version of Aperture still works.
Thanks! Great info here if you can find it.

External Optical Drive Not Recognized

I've been using a Pioneer DVR111 external firewire drive for the last few months. Until tonight it's performed flawlessly.
I ripped a couple of CDs into iTunes tonight, then when I tried to do another it wouldn't work. The CD wouldn't mount and the drive wasn't recognized by system profiler. I hear the drive spin up when the disc is inserted, but that's about it.
I then tried the disc in the internal drive. Also no response.
So I shut the computer down, unplugged everything and waited a few minutes. I think this is called resetting the PRAM or something like that.
I rebooted from the install disc and rann hardware test. Passed without problem.
I rebooted again and everything seemed fine. Both optical drives were recognized in Profiler.
However, when I inserted a disc in the external drive, it again wasn't recognized. And when I rechecked Profiler, the drive had disappeared. The internal drive, however, seems to have remained okay.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? Might this be caused by a faulty external drive, or something else? The external was working fine a couple of hours ago, and I'm a little bit spooked that my internal was acting oddly for a time.
Thanks in advance for the help.
ron
iMac Intel Duo Core Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Can you be more specific about "Arch Linux don't recognized it"?
Post the output of lsusb and dmesg.
Do you have an internal optical drive? If not, what's the output of 'cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info'?

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.

Optical drive picks and chooses when it will work

For some reason, the optical drive on our Mac has been acting weird for about 3 months. It will only read my husband's games (Civ IV and Command and Conquer). It won't read any of our kids' games, my CDs, or any of our backup CD-Roms. It also won't burn any CD-roms. I haven't checked recently, but a couple of weeks ago my 7 y.old was watching Harry Potter on it, so I guess the DVD function still works.
I'm assuming that we need a new drive. Space on my desk is at a premium, so I'd like to find something internal rather than external. I don't burn disks very often--usually just backup disks and photos a few times a year. We don't burn DVDs, at least not yet!
Is my hypothesis correct in that the drive is kaput? If so, what should I look for in a new drive? Are there any especially good drives? And is an internal drive a good choice (assuming that external drives come with more bells and whistles)?
I have installed memory upgrades several times over the years , so I'm pretty comfortable working inside a Mac. (Eeep, 1st Mac Love was in 1988 <--dating myself). Is this a job that I could do myself?
Any help is welcome!
Thank you--
Jane Healy
Machine information:
PowerMac G4 with dual 867 MHz processors, 1 MB L3 cache per processor, 1.75 GB DDR SDRAM and using OS 10.4.9.
Here's the info on the drive:
PHILIPS CDD5101:
Firmware Revision: A4.2
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 8192 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-Raw
Media: No
PowerMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Sure sounds dead to me. If it won't play or record at all, that's a very bad sign. The lens cleaning trick may work, but you should have noticed a lot of skipping before it got to the point you are at now if it was just the lens. But that's definitely what you want to do first, to be sure.
Installing an optical drive is not difficult. OWC has a great series of videos on how to do so at this link: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/installation.cfm
Pioneer drives are very popular with Macs and for good reason. The current version is the 112, and has received generally good reviews (OWC carries the 112, although New Egg has a cheaper price. Both are bare drives - not retail versions, but you can just reuse the screws and cables you have). xlr8yourmac maintains a user database of people's experiences with different drives in different machines at this link:
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso
It's an excellent source of info. If you want to go with a retail package, it will cost more. Best Buy carries the 112, but Pioneer gives it a different number in the retail version (it's the 1810).The retail package will give you some windows software and screws and a cable. Now that I think of it, I don't know if your machine has a 40 or 80 wire cable; you'd need the latter to get full dvd burning speed from the drive. If you want to go external, I just got a Samsung 184 and it works beautifully, on sale at Best Buy but sale ends today. A combo drive like the Philips will only run about $10 cheaper than a dvd burner.
Look to spend about $40 for a bare drive, $65 for a boxed version, $80 to $100 for an external.
mac pro, dual 1.25 g4 Mac OS X (10.4.9) dell 9200, dell xps 400

Not able to read DVD in the optical drive, but able to read CD

So lately, my MBP's optical drive have been acting up weirdly when I put in a DVD disk. It would suck it in, and I would hear the sound that it tries to put the read head on the disk but failing. After a while it just spit the disk out. This would only happen if I put in a DVD disk, when I put in a music CD, it works and load the music into iTunes and everything.
Does anyone know what's wrong?

THis almost invariably means your drive needs cleaning or that you are using bad media xcc. DVD's are harder to "read" and "write" than CD's and generally show "dirty lens" problems well before issues arise with CDs.
Get a DVD cleaning disc and run it through a few times.
Cheers
Rod

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.

How to install OS/reset password without optical drive?

I was given a white G3 recently, 900 MHz 1 GB of RAM, pretty decent for as old as it is, only problem is that it doesn't have an optical drive. All of the user accounts have passwords and I can't use a disc to do a clean install or reset passwords. Any clue on how to do do anything without a disc? The closest thing I have to an external optical drive is an IDE drive with an IDE to USB adapter, but it doesn't recognize that on boot. I have an external hard drive if I can somehow mount an image on that. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

How to share cd/dvd:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10427176-263.html
& on the computer with the cd/dvd:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777?viewlocale=en_US
Change Password
Mac OS X:
Changing or resetting an account password via GUI:
Resetting a user's password
Resetting the original administrator account password
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106156
You do not have a CD/DVD
Changing password from single user mode:
You can also change the administrator's password from single user mode or create a new administrator account.
You need to get into single use mode for steps one and two that are listed below.
This page will tell you how to get into single user mode.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492
Basically, you hold down the command-s key then powering on your machine. The command key has a little apple symbol on the lower left. It is between the alt/option key and the space bar. On a PC keyboard, it will be the windows key, I think.
1) You can change the password on an account. ( Do you know Unix. You are in a Unix single user console. ) The setup commands you need should be listed on the screen. For Mac OS 10.4.11, the commands are:
# Type the follow two instructions to access the startup disk in read/write:
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
# Start up some utility processes that are needed.
sh /etc/rc
# You will probably need to press the return key once the system stops typing.
# To find out the users on the system type, use the list command. The l is a lower case L:
ls /Users
# One of these accounts will be the administrator.
# Pick one of the users which I'll call a-user-name and type it in this command:
passwd a-user-name
# and enter the new user password. You need six characters.
# You will need to enter your password twice. Your typing will not show up on the screen just
# press enter when you complete the typing.
# For cryptic information on these commands try:
man ls
man passwd
The root account isn't enabled by default. I am not sure if changing the password on root will enable it.
2) Get the Mac to set up an additional administrative account. You can then change the password on your old account.
Start with your computer power off. Hold down command-s. Power on your computer.
Type in the following:
The first two commands will depend on your release of Mac OS X. Look at what is typed out in the console to determine the exact format.
# Type the follow two instructions to access the startup disk in read/write. Press return after each command.
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
cd /var/db
pwd
#List all files. The l is a lower case L.
ls -a
#The move command acts as a rename command in this format.
mv -i .applesetupdone .applesetupdone.old
reboot
Once you've done that the computer reboots and it's like the first time you used the machine. Your old accounts are all safe. From there you just change all other account passwords in the account preferences!!
Limnos adds detailed explainations:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8441597#8441597
The above the idea came from a post by JoseAranda at September 9, 2006 3:48 AM
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/howdo_i_reset_my_mac_os_x_admin_rootpassword.html
You will need to scroll down to see this post. Search for applesetupdone
Once you have a new administrative account, you can change the password of your old administrative account
blue apple > System Preferences > Accounts
• You can see that it is easy to change your administrator password. You can set a firmware password that you enter before your machine will boot.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1352
• For the best data security, you should use FileVault. Create a good logon password. Define and use a good backup plan. I do not recommend using FileVault unless you really need the security because it is much harder to recover your data should you have a hard drive problem and you do not have your data backed up.

How can I fix my optical drive?

In mid-September my sister asked me to free up some space on her computer harddrive (hers is a 2009 MacBook, white plastic unibody or whatever). Her drive was so full that she couldn't download the smallest of drive apps. I told her to just delete some junk but she refused, stubborn girl. So I removed my computers optical drive (I have a 2010 MacBook Pro with aluminum unibody), and replaced it temporarily with the OWC data doubler. At first I couldn't do the replacement because there was a screw I couldn't remove because the head of the screw was broken, so I put my OWC SSD in my sister's computer and her HDD in her optical drive slot. It worked. But now my optical drive is not working. It has power, the discs insert and revolve normally, but my computer doesn't get any of the information. iTunes can't 'see' the CD's and DVD Player can't 'see' the DVD's. And I can rarely eject the discs. I only ever tried one CD and one DVD in the drive and both spent over a week to eject. When they ejected, the computer had just booted up and said "You have inserted an incompatible disk" or something like that, I don't really remember. I did try removing all the data from my SSD and booted it up as completely new, but got the same thing.
HELP!
BTW when I inserted the DVD and opened DVD Player, it showed an error code -70012 (A valid DVD drive could not be found)

The Superdrive is tied to a copy protection scheme for playing DVD movies, I suspect when you placed it in the other machine it messed this up.
Have no idea how to fix it and you should have consulted before doing such a drastic act.
It's dumb moves like this that Apple is now sealing up all their computers so us pro's and power users can't service it themselves.
Firewire Target Disk Mode could have been used to free up space on the non-booting hard drive, or installing OS X on a external drive.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive

Swapping OPtical Drive for SSD

I am going to swap my optical drive for an SSD to make everything far more faster. My computer is out of warranty so it won't be affected. I was just wondering what will happen to my existing hard drive when I clone the old hard drive and copy it on to the SSD? Obviously I will make it so my computer boots my SSD, does my old hard drive act in the same way an external hard drive does? Will I be able to save things on there just as easily as before?
Thanks

Go talk to Bmer over here
http://macosg.com/
What he did was move the hard drive to the optical bay and then replaced the boot drive with a SSD with a kit, he can walk you though it all as he's good with SSD's and all it's headaches. The kit also makes the Superdrive a external optical drive.
SSD's make good boot and program drives, but not a good file drive, use the hard drive for that instead.
One of the drawbacks is you can't boot from the OS X install disks or Windows disk or even perhaps not even Linux disks on a external optical drive.
So you'll have to learn all about Carbon Copy Cloner and option bootable clones too.
Download the free MacTracker and find out your SATA, as that can limit your SSD speed and could save you money as you buy the slower older SATA SSD's to match your hardware instead of the higher more expensive ones you can't use anyway.
Good Luck.

Suggest an external optical drive?

My iMac's (21.5 inch) optical drive is just about useless, especially when it comes to transferring files from discs onto my computer, taking as long as 30 minutes for 4gb of information. My girlfriend's iMac (24 inch) optical drive is completely broken and can not read, write, or recognize discs, and once one is put in it usually takes an act of congress to get it out.
Both of us are looking for a good, yet affordable external optical drive. I have been browsing stuff online at Best Buy but noticed all of them only list "windows" in the specification box. Are they still compatible with Mac?
Are there any "good" ones anyone can suggest that I can actually buy in person at a store such as Best Buy or Walmart? I have noticed a lot of people suggesting LaCie but I would really prefer to buy in person than over the internet.

I've never used an external optical drive, but a person I know who wore out the internal optical drive in his iMac replaced it with a LaCie. This person puts in lots of hours burning disks and he's very satisfied with the LaCie.
An Apple Store may carry them but I don't know for sure. I know some Apple Stores carry LaCie peripheral hard drives.
Regards,
Steve M.

Optical Drive set to region 6 from factory?

I got one of the new MBP 2010 15" iCore 7;s from apple.com. I went to play a DVD today and a notice came up saying that my region is already set to 6 and would I like to change the region. I have seen a couple postings of others experiencing the same thing. Is this a standard apple practice? We're only allotted a few region changes before the drive is locked, does this take up one of them?

Unfortunately, not much help from my second phone conversation with Apple. Talked to a tech person, then to the sales department (to track down where my MBP shipped from?), then back to tech and finally to some manager tech person. No one could explain why this happened. The only offered solution was that someone in a factory in China "tested" out the DVD player prior to shipping. Not sure how that happens since my MBP came brand new and when it started up I got the welcome to OSX / startup customization page. Also, it's not clear why the optical drive would be needed to be tested with a video dvd where any disc media should have sufficed (including the OSX installation discs!). And why would a MBP destined to the US be "tested" with a Region 6 (Asia) video DVD?
I don't see this going anywhere with apple, the support obviously had no clue why this happened.
I also did not like the slight attitude from the manager asking me: "What do you expect us to do about it?"
<rant> I don't know...at least act like you give two s*s about this? <rant />
Obviously, customer relations was not this guy's strong suite, though he did conclude the discussion saying he'd ask the engineers and call me back. Haven't heard from him yet.
In the end this is really only an inconvenience, but it should never have been. For the premium Apple charges on its products (and AppleCare), there is no reason for the lack of suck obvious quality control, nor customer support.

How to remove stuck optical drive carrier

I'm in the process of replacing a worn out Optical Drive in my 2007 Mac Pro Tower. When I got to the 'remove the optical drive carrier,' the stinker comes out about 3/4 inch and then no further. I don't want to force it of course. Anyone else ever have the same problem?

I posted same question, got no answer so found a solution? for Mac Pro 3.1 early 2008 version.
This only can be done if you have 2 super? drive bays with lower unoccupied.
In my case it did not move at all in attempt to pull it out - in fact it is stuck on two screws that act as posts and are in slots in the bottom side of aluminum tray that it is supposed to slide out from. You don't see these until you get it out.
In your case with 3/4" opening, first try pulling one side then other, rocking, prying, a small crow bar. Try harder.
no, not the jack hammer.
Failing all else,
1) lay the computer - open side panel down - on the floor.
2) slide the lower unoccupied DVD tray open with your finger and insert a blunt object (I used big old blunt screw driver) into the opening aimed down towards the floor. When you apply force to the inserted object, it is in the direction that enclosure must be pulled to get it out normally and on the side where it is stuck. You may have to strike the object, as I did, before enclosure will come free.

Optical drive acting up

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