Optical drive and hard drive overheating and behaving strangely

Hi All,
I purchased a MacBook white a few months ago so that I could do some development for the iPhone. I have noticed that after extended use (I just finished installing Windows 7 with Boot Camp) that the optical drive heats up a lot and starts to become unresponsive. I have also noticed that the hard-drive has a similar issue; if I leave the computer on at night doing something (recently, I left it on to format some videos in .mp4 for the iPod Touch) that I can lose files inexplicably. For example, only half of the videos I converted actually showed up on the HDD after it had finished converting all of them.
Are these problems normal? I have managed to circumvent them somewhat by propping the laptop up on an angle so it isn't pressed directly against the table.
The optical drive has now become so unresponsive when hot that I can't do things like install programs from it or copy data.
Any help would be great. Thanks.

As for the taking apart part. I'm not too worried. I've read quite a bit on the subject and watched a couple youtube videos. Also, i've taken a iBook G4 apart to it's core to replace that hard drive and did it without a hitch.
I'm a little unsure about the interface for the Optical Drive. From what i've read the HD is a SATA connection. While, the Optical Drive connection is IDE. Is that normal for one computer to have both?
I found two drives both around $100 for each. One is SATA the other is IDE.
SATA
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/BusinessProducts/Blu-rayDisc+DVD Writers/DVDComputerWriters/DVR-TS08
IDE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118021
Also, the HD from Newegg that I posted above, runs at 3GB/s. I've remember reading somewhere that my iMac will only run the drive at 1.5GB/s. Is that true?

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IChat Does Not Activate iMac's Camera and Behaving Strangely

Hello,
I opened up iChat this morning in an effort to place a video call with my father across the country. We've done this plenty of times without issue. We both own new 27" iMacs with built in iSight cameras and have fast internet connections. All software and the OS is up to date. Today, however, we could not connect and it became evident that my iChat application was the cause of the problem. Repeated attempts to initiate video calls resulted in nothing. Clicking on the video chat icon yielded nothing.
When I open up iChat's preferences, nothing happens either. By selecting it a second time, I eventually get the preferences window to open up with a message: "Select a button first!" I can select the General tab, as well as Accounts, Messages, and Alerts. However, when I click on the Audio/Video tab, nothing happens. The application behaves like I didn't click anything and keeps the previously selected preferences tab active.
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Hi,
That is a different one.
Never seen or heard of that.
Summary so I can list what I understand.
Clicking your Own video icon next to your Buddy pic show nothing.
The Audio/Video section of the iChat Preferences is not available.
Clicking a Buddy's Video icon also produces nothing.
Can you say where you saw this ?
"Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '+: unrecognized selector sent to class 0x7fff70d91b08'"
Was it in Console and did it have any info on what app or framework was involved ?
This would seem to implicate the com.apple.ichat.plist
(there used to be an Error that would stop the Preferences appearing at all - related to the fact iChat windows never have the top right oblong white Hide/Reveal Tool Bar option button).
However iChat also has a "Software camera" as it is called that does the bit about doing the Screen Sharing.
iChat also uses two files (in this case) about Video production.
One I am sure about (a USB digitiser) and a second (ApplePixelSomething) that I am not so sure about.
I believe the first makes a UVC complaint camera look like a DV input to iChat and Photo Booth.
If you are at 10.6.6 this run this Combo Version of the Installer over the tops of what you have.
The 10.6.7 one is here
Hopefully this will correct any faults with these files (If they have been updated since the OS came out).
You could try deleting com.apple.ichat.plist
This is found in your Home Folder/Library/Preferences
Drag it to the Trash and restart iChat if open.
This will recreate the .plist from default held in the iChat app.
It does remove all the settings you have made in the iChat Preferences:-
Font
Font Colour
Background to IM colour
Saved Transcripts
and so on
9:52 PM Sunday; April 3, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

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Running boot camp from a HDD in optical bay and OS X from an SSD in hard drive

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Regards,
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yes.

Mixing IDE hard drive's and optical drive problem

So the other day on ebay i bought an adapter plate that allows me to fit a hard drive in an optical drive bay, in the mac pro as you know the optical drives are connected over IDE and i had an old IDE hard drive lying around i wanted to make use of for a windows partition, i installed the drive below the optical drive fine and plugged them both in and both the optical drive and hard drive are in cable select mode but now when i boot up neither the optical drive or hard drive are recognized.
in theory this should work as there both ide devices on cable select mode. what am i doing wrong here or can i simply not mix an ide optical drive and hard drive?
Will

Ok thankyou, ive gotten the number of a local apple specialist repair centre and im going to ring them to get a quote, if it costs lots i wll do it myself, and i have an 80 pin cable lying around a really high quality one so i may end up using that
once again thankyou very much
maybe next time ill be more careful

How do I install OSX onto a new SSD (in the place of my optical drive) without transferring all data across. However, with the applications, system and library on the SSD to improve the speed, but keep non essential items (the home folder) on the HDD

I have a mid 2009 13 inch unibody 2.53GHz MacBook Pro. I'm finding that it doesn't run as quickly as it used to.
A genius in the Apple store suggested that I replace my optical drive with an SSD, however only use the SSD for OSX, applications, system and library. Keep all documents, pictures, music etc on the current hard drive.
I would be grateful if someone could help me with:
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2) transferring applications, system and library folders across to the SSD so that they still function
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However, I would like to run iMovie, with all events etc solely from the SSD to speed up the process of editing movies.
If anyone could help with this, it would be much appreciated.

If you got the data transfer cable with your SSD, the procedure should be pretty simple - and there should be step-by-step instructions in the box. You're simply going to remove the bottom case of your computer (using a Phillips #00 screwdriver), take out the two screws in the bracket holding the hard drive into place (using same screwdriver), remove the drive and (use a Torx 6 screwdriver) remove the four screws that hold the hard drive in place. Then put in the SSD and reassemble the machine.
Then you'll plug up the old hard drive by using the SATA to USB cable and use the option key to boot from the old drive. I don't know what data transfer software Crucial provides, but I would recommend formatting the SSD using Disk Utility from your old drive ("Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with a single GUID partition) and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old drive to your new SSD (see this user tip for cloning - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4122). You needn't worry about getting an enclosure since you have the data transfer cable and you don't want to use your old hard drive.
There are a number of videos on YouTube that take you step-by-step through this procedure - many specific to Crucial SSDs and their data transfer kit - do a little searching there if you're unsure of how to procede.
Clinton

Setting up new MBP with SSD and optical drive and restoring from Time Capsule

Hi Everyone-
Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I couldn't find a specific answer by searching. My last macbook was stolen, but luckily I had everything backed up in my Time Capsule. I just ordered my new Macbook Pro (13"), 16GB Ram, and a 240GB SSD. I plan to install everything next week. My plan is to keep all of my apps and working files on my SSD and use my 2nd hard drive for data storage and possibly my itunes library. My question is- when setting all of this up, what would be the best way to go about doing this.
1.) Restoring my time machine backup to the original hard drive, move it to the optical drive bay, and then copy over the files that I want on the SSD (after installing the operating system) and delete them off of the origan HD.
2.) Restore my backup to the SSD (once it's installed) and then move files over to the formated original harddrive in the optical bay. My problem is that there may not be enough room on the 240GB SSD.
3.) Is there a way to do a slective restore through TM and move where I want to keep them? I think this would be the easiest.
4.) Other way that I haven't mentioned
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I used setup assistant last time when I changed from a 2009 mini to a 2010 mini. It caused some file permission errors that still persist today with iPhoto. I have 2 accounts on my mini, 1 for my wife and 1 for myself, but I store all our photos and videos on the shared folder in order to avoid duplication. But when she imports pictures from her profile and I try to view them full screen, I'm unable to. I have to relaunch iPhoto and repair file permissions if I want to view them properly. I was hoping to avoid this happening again.

IMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010) - CPU and Optical drive fans rev up to 4000 rpm

Hello,
I just want to share my experience with my rather new Imac
I bought this Imac last April and I had the fans roaring after 2 weeks of light usage. I followed instructions like resetting the SMC, unplugging the imac and restarted.
However, I started installing other software like Paragon NTFS, VLC, Firefox and also Istat nano. This happened on a more regular basis and istat nano was showing up fairly normal temperatures - an average of 50° C and I had the CPU fan at 3800 and the Optical drive fan at 4200 rpms. According to apple support, at this temperature fans should be running at factory level or a bit more. Even when I stop all activity, the fans keep up and does not stop even after a couple of hours of inactivity on the imac. Apple support recommended that I reinstall macos on a new partition and run tests and during the tests, the only software I installed was istat nano and still got the fans going with the same result - required a shutdown to bring fans at normal levels and yet average temperatures were around 50 - 55 °C.
Eventually got apple to replace heat sensors - this did not help - still got the same unwanted result, fans reving up to 4000 rpm and not stopping and all that without going above 60°C. I was at the stage to demand a complete replacement but decided to give it another couple of weeks testing.
Last test, a complete reinstall of the OS and this time, without any other software apart from standard software delivered with the mac. Ran a few things like importing over 10,000 pictures with iphoto and some other stuff to increase activity - overall CPU usage was at 5% idle for a good few hours and could not reproduce the problem (istat nano was not installed, so I could not monitor temperature). I started installing Paragon NTFS for mac and ran the same scenarios and still no fans going crazy - putting my hands over the top of the imac, can feel a slight breeze...).
Installed other software such as VLC and Firefox 5.0 but still no istat nano and same high activity, import high volumes in iphoto and also did an empty secure thrash to increase load. CPU usage was to 95 again and still fans are behaving properly.
One thing that comes to my mind with istat nano is that, when the fans get going, the ambient value change to -140 - I do not want to rush into any conclusion but is it possible that there is some interference between istat nano and those new sensors that have come in with Imac mid 2010 (from reading mac forums, Apple has added a new ambient sensor..). Because all the time I have been reinstalling the OS, I have always installed istat nano to monitor temperature and fan speed and I always got this issue. But since yesterday, I have installed clean OS, tested, added some 3rd party software but still no istat nano and I canot reproduce the issue. I have been using the same scenario during all this testing - very high import with iphoto, viewing a film, empty secure thrash, enough to use up to 95% CPU.
Has anyone experienced this? I hope this is the cause of my problem because this mac is making my life easier at home compared to previous PC and also, I want to know that my hardware is not at fault...
I will keep you posted if I get the issue again - could be tempted to install istat nano and run the tests to see if the fans will rev up after this but not sure I want to go through another 4 days of just doing this...
regards
Philip

Hey nycbigapple2,
I'd run through the recommended troubleshooting steps for when your iMac runs slowly here:
OS X Mavericks: If your Mac runs slowly
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13895
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
Take care,
Delgadoh

MacBook Pro Repeatedly Loads Purple & Teal Stripe, Gray, Light Blue, Bright Blue and Bright Blue Stripe Screens Instead of OS after Optical Drive Replacement by Apple (PICTURES INCLUDED)

17 inch March 26-29 (order date – shipping date) 2011 MacBook Pro, 256GB Solid State Drive, 2.3 GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 1 processer, 4 Cores, 256 KB L2 Cache per core, 8 MB L3 Cache, 8 GB Memory (8GB 1333MHZ DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB), AMD Radeon HD 6750M Video Card, Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 512 MB total of VRAM. 110 GBs of free/unused disk space remaining.
Full Specs are in subsequent post.
The issues described in the title continue even after I’ve reinstalled the operating system twice (Snow Leopard) and installed Mavericks (which is working fine and even faster). I’ve tried many commands to repair this.
If anyone has experienced any of the symptoms above or below, your advice and response will be much appreciated as well as marked. These are the details:
My Early 2011 MacBook Pro has had the typical blue screens, screen freezes and graphics issues since I bought it about three years ago but nothing like this and NEVER any load issues until about a month ago. That was when my superdrive replacement was put in.
Since then my MacBook Pro will go into hard freezes or kernel panics. Then I’ll have to power it down manually and power it up manually. It’ll then refuse to load the OS until after multiple tries. It started out just 2 or 3, then 4 or 5, then 6-12, then 20. Now it takes over 30 boots to load the OS. These boot issues also occur even if it doesn’t freeze, i.e.: when I shut it down or restart it naturally (via the Apple menu, etc.).
95% of the time it’ll load to a gray screen instead of the OS. 4% of the time it’ll load to a light blue screen. Then there are the others: the first time this happened it loaded to the striped purple and teal screen shown in the picture. This happened the next four times then intermittently for about 5 or so more times.
It also loaded gray flickering screens. Flickering screens also occurred right before it froze and had to be manually powered down and up. Then it began to load regular gray and light blue screens and all flickering screens stopped. And then bright blue screens a couple times intermittently for a few days, sometimes with lines. Sometimes it’ll load to a blank/black screen as well. I’d reset the NVRAM and SMC but it still continued, happening multiple times a day, each time taking more and more hard shut downs and hard power ons to finally load the OS.
Until I installed Mavericks, every time it finally loaded the OS Finder began indexing. After Mavericks this has occurred 95% of the time.
After talking to Apple Support they had me do a NVRAM and SMC reset again over the phone. The MacBook Pro refused to load the entire time we were on the phone. After the call it got worse. It froze over 6 times that day and at worse took over 30 boots to load the OS.
I finally had time to deal with it the next day when it froze again. After over 25 boots it loaded and I put in the Snow Leopard OS dvd and ran Disk Utility. I verified the hard drive and it said it was fine. Repaired the disk anyway and it gave this message at the end:
“Updating boot support partitions for volume required”.
Next I tried to start in safe mode and it just hung up for hours. Then started up in single mode and it loaded the OS. It then loaded normally for three times in a row. I reinstalled Snow Leopard. Everything loaded normally. I waited an hour or so and then I downloaded Mavericks. 5 or so hours later Mavericks was installed. Everything hardware wise was fine for a day and all software issues were easily fixable incompatibilities. My Mac was even faster with Mavericks. However, Photoshop did give a perhaps relevant message:
“Photoshop has encountered a problem with the display driver, and has temporarily disabled GPU enhancements. Check the video card manufacturer’s website for the latest software.
GPU enhancements can be enabled in the Performance panel of Preferences.”
(I have OpenGL enabled in Photoshop and it was already checked when this error occurred).
Two days ago I went to Disk Utility to repair permissions while logged in to a non-admin account. Verified and repaired the disk, then verified permissions. Everything fine. After repairing permissions however, it gave a weird error box:
"Unapproved caller, SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software".
The box stayed “stuck” in the Disk Utility window. My MacBook Pro then failed to do anything. I manually powered it down and up. It loaded to a gray screen with the error message box again: "Unapproved caller, SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software".
It then refused to load anything else but this message box on a gray screen even after rebooting it multiple times in safe, verbose and single modes and after resetting the NVRAM and SMC. I went online with an iPad and entered in the error and got some advice. I tried to run fsck and erase the /var/folders/ via single user mode but it still loaded to a gray screen with the error message. I just decided to skip to the end and Cmd-R loaded into recovery mode and reinstalled Mavericks again. That worked: the message has not appeared since.
Some people have said this error is related to a hard drive cable failure. I know that this cable was tampered with during the optical drive replacement procedures because I watched them do it.
Everything was fine for a day. Then yesterday my MacBook Pro froze while trying to open a VLC file. It took 12 boots to load the OS. I tried single mode once and verbose mode once. 10 times it loaded to gray screens, even in those mode. A Safe boot lead to a bright blue screen. Finally reset the SMC and it loaded on the 12th time.
Just five hours ago the same thing happened except it took over 30 boots to load the OS. Single, verbose and normal boots, NVRAM and SMC resets lead to gray screens. Safe boots lead to bright blue screens with and without lines (see pictures). Finally loaded on a normal boot.
I know I should have tried safe booting, verbose, single and recovery modes, disk utility, fsck and other command methods earlier this month but in the end, these methods have not solved the problem anymore than resetting the NVRAM or SMC.
There seems to be conclusive evidence that it’s a hardware problem, stemming from last month, the FIRST AND ONLY time my MacBook Pro was opened up. Maybe it’s the hard drive cable, but it could also be the graphics card and/or logic board (something that’s always been defective on this MacBook Pro, in my opinion). Many early 2011 MacBook Pro owners have given evidence to the latter possibility online.
The first time it started it seemed to stem from me using iPhoto and Photoshop a lot. I had both running continuously for about two weeks. This is another reason for suspecting the graphics card/logic board is at fault (in addition to three years of screen/graphics glitches). And since the card is soldered to the board and the board connected to the cable...I also have serious battery draining issues, something else that got bad after the Apple Superdrive repair. And the battery is connected to the board...
Also, since downloading Mavericks, windows from every app get blurry/fuzzy when I scroll or zoom in. I have read that this is happening to a lot of folks though for various reasons.
I guess it could always be the hard drive. I just don’t know. I’m taking it in to Apple, but can't right away because it’s not local. I know they’ll be able to run a test on the hard drive. I wanted to see if anyone else has had this problem (especially the purple and teal striped screen) before they start poking around, possibly creating another problem that goes beyond my Apple Care Plan allotment.

SPECS OF MY MACBOOK PRO:
Model Name: March 26-29 2011 MacBook Pro (order date – shipping date)
Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,3
Processor Name: Quad-core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:    2.3 GHz
Number of Processors:    1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 8 GB Memory (8GB 1333MHZ DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB)
HARD DRIVE: 256GB Solid State Drive
DISPLAY: MBP 17" HR Antiglare WS Display
AMD Radeon HD 6750M:
Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6750M
Type:    GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width:    x8
VRAM (Total): 1024 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6741
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-C0170L-573
gMux Version: 1.9.24
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.573
Intel HD Graphics 3000:
Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics 3000
Type:    GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x0126
Revision ID: 0x0009
gMux Version: 1.9.24
Displays
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes
Battery Information:
Model Information:
Serial Number:    C01111403GLDGKMAE
Manufacturer: DP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code:    0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0406
Hardware Revision: 0001
Cell Revision:    1102
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 4583
Fully Charged:    No
Charging: Yes
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 7765
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 276
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA):    -4487
Voltage (mV): 11306
System Power Settings:
AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes):    15
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    15
Wake on AC Change: No
Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake on LAN: No
Current Power Source: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: No
GPUSwitch: 2
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes):    15
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    5
Wake on AC Change: No
Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: No
GPUSwitch: 2
Reduce Brightness: Yes
Hardware Configuration:
UPS Installed:    No
AC Charger Information:
Connected: Yes
ID:    0x0100
Wattage (W): 85
Revision: 0x0000
Family: 0x0085
Serial Number:    0x007ad8c5
Charging: Yes
Current operating system: 10.9.3 (Mavericks) ; Installed on 6/21/14
Previous operating system: 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard); Installed 4/4/11
        Reinstalled multiple times. Last reinstall: 6/21/14

Adata sp900 sdd 128-GB ssd, optibay optical drive to replace superdrive, and 16 GB upgrade for macbook pro mid 2012.

Hello everyone,
Thank you in advanced for all of the support. This is my first post to the communities. I just bought a 2.9 GHz core 17 processor MacBook pro mid 2012 13" with 8 GB of RAM and I am in the process of upgrading it. When I bought the MacBook pro originally, I was told that I would never mac out the performance because I do not do a lot of photo/video editing. This is true, but I am an academic researcher and tend to multitask often, having 20+ safari tabs open, SPSS (a statistical program), full screen mail app, full screen calendar app, and preview, iTunes open all at the same time. I often get slow performance and error messages that state low memory. This is why I am interested in upgrading the laptop. I am getting ready to go to medical school and I want to have a powerful laptop. I also want to future proof because I plan on having a dual boot system to mac OS and windows OS.
Because I know I will be maxing out the performance of the computer, I want to take full advantage of upgrades, especially now because the cost of the components is reasonable at the moment. The following are the proposed upgrades:
1. Upgrade my current 8-GB ram (2x4-GB) with 16-GB ram (2x8-GB). I plan on using crucial RAM.
Crucial 16-GB Ram: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJFW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=2B1KHELSPJPNN&coliid=IYGJWGQDH8LV0&psc=1
2. Replace my optical drive with a hard drive. I will place a SSD into my current hard drive position and then install my current HDD into the optical drive bay with the optibay optical drive caddy. I am doing this because I plan to use the SSD as the boot drive and my current HDD as my backup and files drive. I am putting the SDD into the HDD because I have read it is better to place it in this bay for performance. I will put the other HDD in the optical drive because the performance of that one will not be as important.
Adata SSD: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJFW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=2B1KHELSPJPNN&coliid=IYGJWGQDH8LV0&psc=1
Optibay Optical Drive Caddy: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058AH2US/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=2B1KHELSPJPNN&coliid=I3GI8MGWAKXY79
My questions:
1. Is the listed RAM appropriate and sufficient for my MacBook pro?
2. Is the listed SSD appropriate and sufficient for my MacBook pro?
3. Is the listed Optical Drive Caddy appropriate and sufficient for my MacBook pro?
4. Is there still a firmware problem that does not allow for SATA 3 (6Gb/s) support in the optical drive?
5. Would it be easier to format the new SSD outside of the MacBook using a SATA to USB adapter?
6. Does working on any of the listed components void my AppleCare (I plan on keeping all of the original components so I can replace them, if I ever need to see apple support)?
7. What is the best way to put Mavericks onto the SSD to make this my boot drive?
8. What is the best way to make all of my files remain on the HDD, but link to the SSD with the operating system?
9. Has anyone ever successfully upgraded to 16-GB RAM and used their optical drive for a secondary hard drive?
10. Is there any miscellaneous advice for this project?
Please feel free to give partial answers. I know this was a lot of information, but I wanted to be efficient in my post. I am very appreciative of everyone who will contribute.
Thank you!

rmichaud91 wrote:
Hello everyone,
I just bought a 2.9 GHz core 17 processor MacBook pro mid 2012 13" with 8 GB of RAM
16 GB of RAM is the best you can do.
The optibay HD will null and void your warranty.

CD/DVD Optical drive appears and then disappears, replacement also does not show up

My laptop: HP Pavilion dv9601AU
I have read a similar post here but my problem is different. My problem is that the DVD drive *sometimes* show up in My Computer and *sometimes* dont. Even the BIOS does not detect it. When I formatted my laptop with Windows 7, to my surprise it was gone. But it appeared again and I somehow installed all the required drivers from my driver DVD.... then it dissapered again. It never came back.
Failed attempt 1: I tried to re-format the PC using virtual drive but the problem persists.
Failed attempt 2: Thinking it to be a physical loose connection, I took it to local HP service station, they removed the drive, put it back firmly, but in vain.
Failed attempt 3: They attached other similar optical drive but to my surprise, the new drive was also not detected.
Failed attempt 4: I tried Microsoft's "Fix It" thing and also read about removing "upper filters" and "lower filters" in registry. However, I didnt have any of those filters entry in the first place so no question about making changes to the registry.
Facts:
1) The drivers are installed. There should not be any problem with the drivers.
2) The lens is perfect. I was able to install all the drivers from DVD when the drive appeared for a short period of time.
3) The HP logo tht appears upon starting the laptop lingers for a longer period of time compared to what it was doing so when the drive was fine.
4) The boot menu does not show the optical drive.
5) I live in India where normal room temperatures go upto 42 degrees Celcius and my laptop gets much much warm most of the times. I think some damage has been done to the internal circuitry.
Please, if somebody can provide me a solution to this. How can I get back my DVD Drive working. The support personnel here are having no clue (especially after learning the fact that their new optical drive also didnt show up) I hope I get some guidance from you guys as what should I do next. Please help me.
Message Edited by jal_desai on 10-09-2009 06:51 AM

I am having the exact same problem with my customer's dvd drive sometimes showing up during boot (BIOS) and sometimes not. Also ran full system diagnostic software and everything else tests fine, although the drive is not showing present. I have also tried 2 different drives but they do the same thing. I would go on to say that if you always left the dvd drive out of the laptop, your boot problems would probably go away. This would then tell you that it's not your drive at all, but the connections on the MOBO or the traces (wires) connecting the drive to the MOBO.
I work on computers and have for several years and most times this is related to a MOBO issue since that is the only item left in this situation. You know it's not the drive since it's been replaced with the same issue so drivers/firmware are not the case. I am assuming you have already updated the BIOS as well, but this shouldn't matter. There could be a dirty contact, faulty component, or a bad trace (wire) on the MOBO which is almost always harder to fix and is better to just replace the MOBO. However, replacing the MOBO is usually expensive when you have to buy the part and then pay someone to install it making it not usually the best option. Even if it is a dirty contact, it was probably caused by something that was spilled which could cause problems later. In this case, I am probably just going to recommend disabling the internal dvd drive and buying a slim external usb dvd drive, and then saving their money for a new laptop. You will still have to wait through a slower boot while staring at the HP screen, but I don't think replacing the MOBO is the most economical thing to do, unless you are the manufacturer and have several laying around.
I know this isn't good news, but it is what I've found to be the case in my experiences. Anybody else care to chime in?

IMac internal optical drive reads and plays cd's but DVD's spin for a few moments then eject. Then any drive utility access results in the spinning wheel of doom. Then the optical drive doesn't show up anywhere until a restart. OSX 10.6.8 - Intel Core 2

iMac internal drive locks up after trying to play a DVD. CD's work properly. All preference settings are correct. I have tried several different DVD's that work in other drives. Drive is : HL-DT-ST DVDRW GA11N. After spinning wheel of doom goes away, so does the optical drive in Disk Utility and System Profiler and no disks work because the drive isn't there until a restsrt. Any ideas? Thanks.

The battery alone is a $5 to $15 part. Hard drives vary in cost, and depending on the iMac, they may or may not be able to install a third party hard drive, or one resold through Apple. The resold through Apple drives tend to cost more. This article discusses the varying successes of third party drives on iMacs:
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-im acs
The labor costs depend on the store as well as the time to get the parts in stock. Call around.

Will the optical drive from a 14" iBook G3 fit and work in a 12" iBook G3?(

The logic board in my 14" G3 finally died (after two replacements). I've got a 13" G3 that works great, but has the CD-ROM optical drive.
Will the combo drive from the dead 14" fit in the 13" (and, more importantly, will it work)? I'm not afraid of the disassembly - I've replaced iBook hard drives before, so I know the drill - but I don't want to start on the job, only to find that the drive won't fit or won't work.
I've read some posts online about master vs slave settings, HD jumpers, and so forth, but I don't think they're talking about a swap job like this.
Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.
Dick

Dick,
Here's the Apple part numbers for the 14" and 12" from the manuals:
14"
Optical Drive
CD-ROM 661-2667
CD-RW/DVD-ROM 661-2683
CD-ROM 661-1775
COMBO 661-1776
12"
Optical Drive Assembly w/Bezel
CD-ROM 661-1775 (Good)
Combo 661-1776 (Better)
So the numbers seem identical hard to tell from the info I have if the cables are the same but even if they aren't there are usually just adapters that screw into the back to adapt to different cables. Since you have both iBooks you'll have those adapters.
There also seem to be differences in the bracketing but you'll also have those so I'd give it a try.
Oh and also the bezels might be different.
Richard

Optical drive and hard drive overheating and behaving strangely

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