Optical Drive Problem! Macbook Alum

Hello.
Is it normal when you´re about to put a cd/dvd into the optical drive sometimes seems that the drive is closed, and you need the adjust the position of the cd/dvd for it to enter.
can someone help me please?
thanks

I work at a University where we support the Macbooks that the school has given the students a choice of a mac or windows laptop -
while i understand what the Mac Genius just said in regards to the placement and alignment - my question is for all you technicians that see these macbooks all the time ....
HOW MANY OF YOU ARE SEEING THE SUPERDRIVES NOT ACCEPTING OR EJECTING MEDIA????
i am curious if this is a design flaw??? the material the macbook is made of is flexible and when students lean, place books or other items on top of their laptops, i think the pressure on the right side(where the superdirve is) is causing the superdrive to be crunched so to speak causing the problems these drives have been having.
Is anyone else experience this? I am just seeing it more and more.

Similar Messages

Unusual optical drive problem: Seeking advice.

The issue with my optical drive is not that it refuses to accept a CD, but rather it writes (visible) rings of inactive songs onto my audio disks. For a while, I tolerated the two or three songs in the middle of my CD that didn't play music, but the rings are getting wider and more songs are lost. My warranty is a good deal past expired, and I'm wondering if there is an affordable solution to my problem. I love music, and (remarkably) I prefer CDs to scrolling through my phone or iPod while driving. I have read several community posts and endless tech advice, but none of it seems to pertain to this specific MacBook affliction. Is this an issue that "cleaning" can solve, or will I have to go ahead and replace the entire optical drive? What else could be causing this problem, and how should I proceed?
Regards,
Abigail

Hi,
thanks for the quick reply - I have followed some of the steps here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801
reset the PRAM and SMC unit. The problem is that the description says:
"The disc-insert cycle runs the motor for about 6 seconds."
My disk inserts (when it is about 3/4 in, the load mechanism takes it in all the way) but does not spin for any time. I hear an attempt, then
the drive spits the disk out.
Looking at this forum, I tried to blow some air inside the drive, no difference
and have found this:
http://muzso.hu/2008/08/17/how-to-clean-the-lens-of-a-slot-loading-optical-drive -a-macbook-pros-superdrive
which is mostly related to cleaning the lens while my problem is with the drive not spinning.
Do I need to open up the superdrive??
Also, thanks for the tip on AHT!
Message was edited by: qwertyu

Possibility to share PS3 optical drive with Macbook Air (2012)

Hello guys,
Can anyone with solid experience on connecting PS3 and MBA tell me if it is possible to use PS3 optical drive with MacBook Air (2012)?
Thanks in advance for the help,

if you mean can the appletv connect to an optical drive remotely then the answer is no.

MacBook Pro Optical Drive Problems

Hello Forum,
I bought a MacBook Pro on 17July2006 and soon discovered that the optical drive worked only occasionally ( It would only read a CD or DVD when it wanted to, new or old. I would read songs to Itunes on a hit or miss basis. If a CD was read into Itunes, only the first one or two songs would be converted to AAC and subsequently burned before the conversion process would hang. New programs would not be read by the optical drive.) I sent the computer back to an official Apple repair station and I was pleased to see the computer and drive repaired and fully operational in a six day turnaround.
That's the good news. The bad news is the drive crashed again last night after working only six days!!! This is my first Apple computer and so far I am not a happy camper. I've called Apple support and service and they are sending out a second service return repair carton.
Is anyone else experiencing multiple failures like this? I'm wondering if they just cleaned and/or adjusted the drive the first service appointment. I hope they replace the drive if they did not the first time. The other thought is that the optical drive is failing because of thermal issues either local to my machine or the MacBook Pro line in general.
Anyone have any thoughts or experience
aero3753
Peoria, Il US

I too have experienced these issues, and after having done a little more online research, it appears that many others have as well. My drive works on reading music CD's probably 60% of the time... Which I find to be unacceptable.
However, it hasn't become such a problem that it requires hardware work just yet. Hopefully it's merely a driver or software issue that can be resolved in the new OS.
Tom
MacBook Pro 15 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Please Help. Macbook running up to date Leopard has optical drive problem

From Day one whenever the lid is shut on my macbook it keeps addressing the optical drive every 10 seconds or so. Its really annoying and I;ve updates the firmware and keep the OS up to date but it keeps doing it. It's like whenever its in sleep mode it keeps addressing the drive. God knows what damage this must be doing the the drive(although it still works fine). Any ideas?

Thank you for the insight. I tried what you described and it did not resolve my issue. Whether I right click to add the star or click the star, it results in the same issue. The only time I can add a star and not have it result in the message going back to unread is if I open the message and leave it open for a significant amount of time, then if I star it, it does not mark it as unopened.

More optical drive problems

I have an iBook G4 that I bought three years ago. This is the second time i have had problems with my optical drive and quite frankly I am tired of having to go to the Genius bar to get it solved. I would much rather learn how to do this on my own so that if anything like this happens again, I can easily solve it from my home. The problem is that a CD is stuck inside the drive. I have tried all methods, holding the trackpad key during startup, resetting the PRAM and PMU, I have tried Firmware (When you hold the command-option-O-F keys during startup and a grey screen appears), and I have called apple support to no avail. I have restarted the computer a few times, and now the computer won't even recognize the fact that it even has an optical drive at all. I really, really, really don't want to go to the genius bar. Is there any other options?

Called in this morning, was transferred around to a few people w/in the store, eventually got to a nice lady who told me "it looks like we'll be replacing your computer with a new white MacBook, since the hard drive was already replaced on your old computer, you didn't have any data to transfer over, so you can come by and pick it up anytime."
I'll be heading over at lunch to see if this really isn't too good to be true. Definitely not going to push for a MBP or anything, a new white MB is definitely a HUGE step up from the original three year old MB.
Looks like patience and generally not being an ******* finally paid off Thanks for the tips, advice and interest. Nice to have a place like this to share experiences!

Ripping DVDs using external optical drive with MacBook

Quick and possibly ridiculously silly question here. I have a collection of about 475 Region-2 DVDs (i.e., playable in the UK, not in the US) I purchased many years ago that are just taking up space. What I would like to do is rip them and store the files on an external drive.
The problem is that the optical drive on my MacBook is broken (no, I’m not happy about it -- see the dozens of pages of complaints in these Forum on the issue) and I don’t want to spend $1000 right now buying a new one.
This means I need to purchase an external optical drive. Unfortunately, I’m pretty confused about whether these things (by LaCie or Samsung, for instance) can actually rip anything, let alone Region 2 DVDs. I know they can write DVDs, but ripping—that I’m not sure about. Logically, they should be able to but I'm wondering whether their ripping capability has been disabled.
So, does anyone happen to know whether an external Superdrive can rip Region-2 DVDs? And if so, can you recommend any good ones for the Mac?
*Incidentally, I should add that these files are for my personal use, won’t be shared/uploaded, and will serve only as backups to my purchased DVDs. Basically, all I really want to do is clear out my cramped apartment and stick all the DVD boxes in a storage unit once and for all.*
Thanks for your help

I have a collection of about 475 Region-2 DVDs (i.e., playable in the UK, not in the US)
You must have one of those old-fashioned DVD players that looks for region codes.
Most better DVD players are now region free and will play NTSC or PAL DVDs.

External Optical Drive for MacBook

Sorry if that sounds like a stupid question:
My built-in optical drive on my MacBook Pro does not work.
Can I connect an external drive to my MacBook. I went to a
shop today (in India) but they told me the external drive
for the MacBook Air would not work on a MacBook Pro.
Any ideas? Thing is I bought Final Cut Express but I cannot
install it without a drive now, can I? Does anybody have a
workaround for me? Thanks a lot.
Mike

Just a quick note about this thread, I have the same problem but was apprehensive about buying an external CD/DVD drive because most of them don't say they are compatible with Mac OS only Windows. Can I assume this is not true, it would be great if I could buy a decent drive at last and not worry about the large cost of replacing the built in one. Would I have to download any firmware for a new External drive or would it work from the start?
Cheers Richard

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.

3000 n200 Optical Drive problems

Hi all.
I have a Lenovo 3000 N200 MT0687, that has NEVER had a properly working optical drive.
Purchased this machine, was on display, and they had lost the box, and no one knew the password on it, so formatted and installec Win XP. The optical drive will install Win XP and other operating systems, but once installed
will NOT look at any other Discs. Data, DVD's, music CD's Will not see a blank cd/dvd so can't write to cd.
Have tried Ubuntu 8.04 with exactly the same result.
Everything else works fine on both WinXP and Linux. Optical Drive doesn't show in either.
I have been in touch with the Lenovo service centre on a number of occasions, and have had different answers
each time, everything from updating the bios, to installing drivers. Nothing worked. Have been told my problem, "original
image" not still on it. See below re re-installing said image with recovery cd's.
Lenovo sent me a new optical drive, a different make to the original, no change, still no
drive showing anywhere on XP. (Or ubuntu 8.04, I appreciate there is no support for Linux)
Lenovo even sent me a set of recovery discs(3), which I installed (after formatting, several times with bios set to both AHCI and Compatability) using both the internal and an external USB connected optical drive. Same result, system boots to "Welcome to Vista etc, then shutting down logging off, only to re-boot to the same place ad infinitum. In short "recovery discs" did not recover. Get error message randomly when this happens "Side Bar error The application failed to initialize properly
(0xc0000189) " Click OK to terminate, but is too fast, and terminates itself.
Machine was sent to Selectron for checkout, told "Nothing wrong with it", but the Optical Drive working at last.
Partitioned Vista, (Shrunk Partition to 45gig) installed another operating system on new partition, can boot into both systems
and recovery, working fine, but now no Optical Drive again.
Rang Lenovo again, informed them, and queried possibilty of buying a Win XP recovery disc, told drive will only work with
Vista, so waste of funds to get a Win XP recovery disc that may or may not work properly.
Am I missing an obscure driver, or will the drive only perform all it's functions running Vista
(which the recovery discs will not install properly)?. If this is the case shouldn't it (the fact that it needs Vista)
be mentioned at point of sale. Does this breach the Anti trust laws? I am afraid I am getting very fed up, would be nice not to have to carry around an external optical drive, that needs a power supply, so if anyone has any ideas I would be extremely appreciative, would even consider naming y first born after them. Will post my problem on the Ubuntu lists again, hoping for resolution. Seems that it's a retty basic expectation that CD drives just work. This should be a machine that can have software installed on it. Have 2 towers (1 dual boot) that have had a few optical drives changed with never any problems.
Thanks in advance. Any ideas very much appreciated.
Winton

What a terrible service from Lenovo. Well after many phone calls to what turned out to be a call centre in Romania. and after being promised a replacement drive day after day one finally turned up. Even after fully explaining what I needed I was sent the wrong drive they sent me a DVD Rom and not the DVD Rewriter that was in my original laptop. The same Romanians have promised me the correct one on Monday. I will wait and see. I have little faith in Lenovo and their whole very poor support network. Quite frankly the drive should never have broken in only 3 weeks and after only approx 8 uses.
I wonder what will turn up
Dennis
Message Edited by DennisN on 10-09-2008 02:28 PM

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?

Second optical drive problem

New to macs after a 14 year hiatus. I recently installed a new pioneer BDR-205 blu-ray drive as a second lower drive in my mac pro 2009 running SL and fully updated. The original first upper drive is a model HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GH41N. Pioneer and OWC both confirmed that the new drive would be plug and play. After proper installation, I confirmed that both drives could at least play a dvd.
But after using the computer for a while and then trying to open the new blu ray drive, the eject won't open it, rather eject only opens the upper first drive. The new drive shows in the system profiler but not the disk utility or anywhere else. When I click on the eject icon at top right of screen, that action hangs for a while. When it resolves itself, only the upper primary drive is available to eject. Clicking alt + eject on keyboard temporarily shows the eject symbol on screen but either does nothing or opens/closes the wrong top drive. I reboot, use the computer for a few hours, try it again to check it but the same problem exists.
FYI- I've researched other similar help threads everywhere and I don't see any options for "cable select," jumper options or the like with this new drive.
Any ideas?

I have a similar problem with the Pioneer 205 blu-ray burner in my Mac Pro (2009). It would disappear after a period of time but then eject would fail and the drive became non-responsive. Typically it would be less than half an hour before the drive would disappear. Changing Energy Saver preferences made no difference.
Also, restarting doesn't bring the drive back, but shutting down and restarting from cold does.
Alone, this isn't so bad, as the drive's failure doesn't stop the system from working — I just need to shut down and restart to use blu-ray. But I think I've found a solution. To stop the drive falling asleep in the first place, I'm using this AppleScript, running in AppleScript Editor for now:
repeat
do shell script "drutil info"
delay 28
end repeat
So, every 28 seconds, the optical drives are polled. A delay of 120 seconds was too long, but it's been a few hours now and the drive is still responsive. I'll leave it running overnight; if it's still good in the morning I think we can chalk this up as a useful workaround.
Obviously, a Pioneer or Apple firmware fix would be better. I've had something similar with a Samsung hard drive — it would fall asleep and not come back after 20 minutes — but that was far worse, as it locked up the Finder. This is benign by comparison, though perhaps indicative of a fussy SATA problem in the Mac Pros?
Hope this script helps someone out.

Optical Drive Problems

I am experiencing two problems that I am a bit worried about in the long run. Upon disc insertion or deletion, there is a bit of noise that I'm not used to hearing and when this noise is happening at the same time the illuminated keys above the disc drive flash off for a split second. Should I be worried about this?

Hi Justin:
This Apple article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1723
has sound bytes of "normal" optical drive sounds. It may help to ease your concerns.
The flashing off of the keyboard illumination doesn't sound too ominous. I just tried on my late 2007 MBP and don't see the flashing. Does your MBP have black or silver keys?

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.

Optical drive problem? Is there some kind of Diagnostic?

When I insert a CD or DVD my MB spits it out, tried to insert slowly, fast, vertical , horizontal etc....
Is there any kind of diagnostic for the optical drive I could run and find out?
thanks

One easy way to tell if this is a hardware or software issue would be to use the startup manager, which does not use the software on the hard drive nor the system on the install disk. Do the following:
1) Restart the computer, using the Apple menu.
2) Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the "Option" key on your keyboard.
3) After the computer starts up you should see an icon for your hard drive. At that point, insert the install DVD.
4) If the same issue occurs (it spits out the DVD) there is a problem with the computer's optical disk drive. You will need to have it repaired. Contact Apple at 1-800-275-2273 for repair.
PM G5, PB G4 17", iMac G5 20" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Optical Drive Problem! Macbook Alum

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