Optical Drive Read Issue

I have a 2 year old iMAC 27". (4 GB DDR3, 1TB) Recently, the drive refuses to read multi-layer disks, which has resulted in a program (X-Plane v9.7) that requires a "disk 1" to be present, to be no longer functioning or useful. Please Help!

Thanks, iCare, for taking the time to respond.
I have tried all manner of DVD's, CD's, everything. All work as advertised. The X-Plane set of 6 disks however, just won't seem to work in that internal drive.
The Disk 1 that I need to "prove" that I am the owner and play the simulator is scratched, but reads perfectly in PCs. A lot of useless drama over a $60.00 piece of software. Especially when there are easier ways to protect against piracy.
I drove the 150 miles to my nearest Apple Store only to find them unresponsive, uninformed, untrained, and unable to offer me any help other than to drive home, pack up my computer, bring it back to them, and let them "look at it", and perhaps fix it, but they were unable to give me a timeframe, or a fixed price. They did agree with the external drive solution, but they couldn't sell me one! I always thought Apple was better than that.
I finally bought a $44.00 LG external drive, and the disk mounted right up. Problem solved, for now. Thanks again.

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EMac optical drive: Reads but ceased writing. I get "Sense key=MEDIUM ERROR, Sense Code=0x0C, WRITE ERROR. Drive is Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-127D.

eMac optical drive: reads fine but has ceased writing. One day it's working fine, burning DVDs, then after repeated attempts stops copying and gives the following error message: "Sense key=MEDIUM ERROR, Sense Code=0x0C, WRITE ERROR". Drive is Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-127D. Is this a software issue or is the drive half dead? Get the same result with either Popcorn or Toast 10.

Are you using Roxio Toast? That error seems to be discussed a lot in the Roxio forums. Scroll down this thread:
http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/1686-the-drive-reported-an-error-sense-key medium-error-etc/
and you'll find a step-by-step troubleshooting scheme.

PPC 9600 SCSI Optical Drive/Software Issue

Hi All
Powermac 9600 with Sonnet G3 processor, Sonnet ATA card and ATA/IDE hard drives, everything else pretty much as-built standard. Running OS9.1. All had been normal for quite a while.
But now the computer will not recognize the standard CD-ROM drive on either the internal or external SCSI bus. A ZIP drive runs on the internal SCSI bus with no problems. I did the PRAM Zap and the termination ritual dance to no avail.
SCSI Probe can see the optical drive but reports (with two different drives and on either bus)
"Trying device x.3.0:
Failed: Driver installed but no drive entries
Trying device x.3.1:
Failed: Logical units not supported"
I take this to mean it is not a hardware issue. I replaced the Apple CD/DVD Driver Extension but that didn't solve the problem.
Is this a firmware or ROM or other issue? Whatever it is, how do I fix it?
Thanks,
Cookie

Cookie,
The SCSI chain was a lot of power provided to a home computer. It contributed to the higher cost of the computer. It also added to the longevity of the hardware usefulness and ease of use. It was decades before a PC could boot from an external device the way a Mac could in the '80s.
Here is what matters in SCSI.
1. It is not plug and play until configured. Each device has to be configured to a specific address. The benefit is the ability to have seven devices recognized at startup.
2. Termination. The signal needs to know when to stop searching. At startup, the host or computer will 'poll' the devices. The first device that it sees with a system folder will allow the computer to boot up. With 'Startup Disk' you can reassign that task to another system folder on another device. The benefit? You can easily repair one hard drive by booting from another drive. Termination tells the host that all devices have been accounted for and it can now move on to the task of reading a drive. Zapping the PRAM tells the host to start fresh and poll all devices. It takes longer to startup but it creates new directories, or table of contents, so to speak. Otherwise the computer may lose track of where to find a file.
3. The highest ID number just sets the priority or que during the device access. The higher the ID #, the sooner it comes in the polling process.
If you want to optimize your SCSI devices, study the rules programmed into the protocol, otherwise, just enjoy the fact that a Mac will let you swap out drives and reconfigure without a lot of trouble. A 'D' drive in a PC will not boot the computer, even if it is a carbon copy of the 'C' drive. In fact, change the C drive to the D drive location in an older PC and the PC will not start.
The external SCSI port was the greatest hardware tool Apple ever offered to the government surplus shopper. We would buy Macs at government auctions and test them within minutes with an external zip drive or hard drive. The PC guys would spend a day on each used PC because they had to find drivers for the video card, the network card, the hard drives, etc.. The SCSI chain was plug and play if we had our external drive set at ID 1 or our zip drive set at 5 because the internal drives were almost always still at the factory setting of 0.
Enjoy your mac and good luck with your optical drive.

Optical drives reads but wont write after swap

hello everyone, I bought an iMac G3 450MHz that had had a 'superdrive' fitted. It both read and wrote CD's and DVDs. I tested it out and it worked just fine, I even made a back up copy of my Tiger DVD with it. I wanted to put the optical drive into my beloved Flower Power 600 iMac CD-RW so ,to make sure all the drive cables etc weren't disturbed, I just removed the whole caddy with the HDD plus the optical drive plus all the connecting cables, and popped it into my Flower Power. It booted up fine so I loaded (via carbon copy cloner) the contents of my original HDD. Now, when I look in system profiler, the optical drive shows up as a read/write but will only read discs. If I put in a blank disc the iMac's OS doesn't see the blank disc. Funnily enough my copy of Toast does see it and Toast launches itself. As I want to be able to burn disc images using Disk Utility this is a bit of a problem for me. I might just add, as it may be of some interest, that whoever fitted the superdrive had the HDD jumpers set to Slave but this was how it was when it worked perfectly in the 450MHz it came in so this was how I left them. The other little problem is the iMac won't sleep but I can live with that.

The reason your hard drive is set to slave is because it shares the IDE bus with the optical drive. With the stock optical drive, the optical drive is set to slave and the hard drive is set to master. However, that superdrive is probably hardwired to master, so the hard drive needs to be slave. As long as one drive is slave and the other drive is master, it should work fine.
Are you using the exact same system installation from the 450 on the 600? If not, there was probably some special driver installed to enable the all the superdrive features. Toast is a third-party app that is designed to work with many different optical drives, so such a driver would be built into the software, which would explain why it works (and Disk Utility does not).
What company sold (and installed) this superdrive?

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.

My optical drive reads DVD's, but wont read or write anything else!

Hi, this is my puzzlement,
the optical drive on my 17mpb will read and play any DVD I put in just fine, but when it comes to everything else it will not read or write. The drive whirrs around and then spits the media back out. Help!

See if a disk cleaner DVD or a few shots of compressed air will cure your problem.
Ciao.

Optical drive reads audio cd's and burned dvd's, but not commercial dvds

I just upgraded my macbook hard drive, doing a clean install of Mac OS X on the drive in an external enclosure, then copying the remaining files, doing all the software updates, and swapping out my old drive. Everything works so far, except... the DVD player will no longer play commercial dvd's (movies and tv). The drive hardware seems ok, in that it reads audio CD's (through iTunes) and DVD's of tv shows burned on my home recorder... which suggests that the DVD player software is ok, too. Did a setting get changed in my software, where it thinks I'm putting in the wrong regional dvd type? The disk goes in, spins and makes noise, and, after a short while ejects out.

Here's what I get:
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E:
Firmware Revision: ZF1E
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

Optical Drive reads some DVD's, but also ejects some - help

I just had a DVD made from an old video tape, put it in my MBP superdrive, it played just fine. I left it in the drive and the next morning when I woke up the computer, the DVD spun and then ejected. Since then it won't load at all. I've tried other DVD's, some work, some don't. The DVD plays just fine in my old iBook. In Disk Utility, I did the repair permissions, that didn't work. I have restarted, shut down and even reset the SMC, the DVD still won't play. My drive info: Model:HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N, Revision: AP09. This sort of thing has happened before with this drive. Any suggestions?

I've had similar problems with my original MBP early 2006's DVD drive, but a good squirt of compressed air in the slot seems to consistently fix the problem. A lot of dust here in AZ where I live
Hope that's all it is...-Karen-

Upgrade optical drive OS issues

Hi,
Please somebody; advice needed:
On ebay I bought en older Macbook A1181 (2ghz, lion/win7) with combo Matsushita CW-8221. Now I want to upgrade it to an superdrive. ifixit.com shows as alternatives the P/N: UJ-857-C, UJ-867, or GSA-S10N and I found an GWA 4080M somewhere else. So the technical issue I'll find out -somehow-by my self- (?), but my question is do I have to reistall the OS after the upgrade? Anyone experience about this kind of upgrade and if possible some suggestions for the superdrive to choose?
Thanks in advance for any answer.

I have similar issue - just migrated everything from IMac running Lion, to brand spankin' new MBPro Retina early 2013, running 10.8.3.
When I open up CS4 standard apps (that were fine on my iMac), the following happens:
-AI works fine
-InDesign Works fine
-Photoshop says it's missing many components and to reinstall
-Adobe Acrobat Pro wants me to launch another CS app (such as Photoshop), before I can open and re-authorize. Eveidently launching AI or InD isn't to it's liking.
So...I tried a total reinstall, and same thing you describe happens; the disk gets stuck in the Adobe Air part of the progress bar. I gave up after about 20 mins.... Then tried just reinstalling PS and Acrobat- same thing. Now I'm wondering if I'll get same error as you, if I leave it going.
FYI, I somehow got a live tech at Adobe, who after telling me CS4 isnt' supported, suggested my disk is messed up since it's old (despite my having it filed away for 5 yrs without touching it after first install...hmmm).
After reading many forums w/ compliaints about CS6 and Mountain Lion, I'm thinking about buying a full version, old 5.5 (new boxed) software and just living w/ that for awhile. Since I can't upgrade from CS4 to CS6, I'm looking for alternatives. Thoughts, anyone?
J

Older enclosure issues w/newer optical drive

Hello All,
Bought an LG GH22NP21 dvd burner and it works fine as an internal in my powermac g5 1.6, but I want to make it work in my old Lacie enclosure. The enclosure is one of the old ones with a fan that housed the original superdrives (in this case dvr104) and connects by FW 400. The enclosure will run the new LG in some cases but has some behavior that makes it a no go (intermittently not being recognized by host computers, won't burn to some sorts of media). It seems that the enclosure is causing the issues.
Anyone have any ideas of how to 'update' an old enclosure like this work on a newer optical drive? I've searched for firmware updates but can't seem to even find the enclosure/product on the web, let alone an actual firmware update. Possibly it's not the firmware that's lacking? Maybe the actual chipboard? I'd love to use this enclosure.
Any light shed on what makes an enclosure compatible with a newer drive would be much appreciated! (Or conversely what makes an enclosure NOT work)
Thanks in advance.
Szucc

Jeff et al,
Sorry for the delays in posts and the resulting stop-and-go nature. Appreciate very much the thoughts and help.
Actually the G5's FW400 is indeed in question as I'm having an issue with Digital Performer that may or may not have to do with the FW card/bus. When editing and mixing (with my audio interface and the data hard drive connected by FW400) I get stopped, routinely, by the colored pinwheel. But the culprit is not yet known and I'm trying many tests; FW may not be the issue at all. But I must find the answer as I can't work with this happening and clients in here are put at disadvantage.
But, with regard to the optical drive, the issue (at least of the failed burning to dvd-r) happens when the drive is connected to 2 different computers, so it's unlikely an issue with the firewire ports/busses/cards on the computers.
So yes, it should be an issue with the old Lacie ENCLOSURE. But is it the firewire bridge? The jury may still be out because I've reinstalled the original optical drive (dvr 104) in the enclosure and the drive is recognized immediately by my G5 (whereas the LG drive inside Lacie would NEVER be recognized). So that points to an adverse interaction between the old enclosure and this newer drive.
My next step, I suppose, would be to try burning to dvd-r with the dvr104 inside the Lacie. If that fails, then, yes, it could very likely be the FW bridge. But if it succeeds then maybe it's the chipset [for lack of better term]? IE: the enclosure itself just simply cannot support this newer LG drive.
So my question is: What makes an enclosure "not support a newer or particular drive"? Is a FW enclosure NOT simply a housing with a power supply and a firewire bridge? Is it much more than that? And what specifically is under the hood that makes an enclosure "more than that"...?
Would LOVE to understand that better.
Thanks again for any thoughts.
Will try burning to dvd-r with the old/original dvr104 back in the enclosure and report back.
szucc

Optical Drive Has Failed - Can I disable it, what's next?

My 2 year old Mac Mini's optical drive has failed.
I had finished importing a CD and went to eject it and all I heard was grinding and the CD would not come out. I tired everything under the sun to get the disk to eject with nothing working, so I took it to my local Apple Care Center.
Their diagnosis is the optical drive has failed. So now what?
1. They removed the CD, but my Optical Drive is still grinding and it is driving me crazy (the grinding is not continuous, but happens every 8 seconds to 10 seconds)! What can I do, can I somehow disable the Optical Drive so it won't continue grinding? I have reboot several times and nothing seems to satisfy/stop this grinding Optical Drive!
2. I guess I am going to have to buy an external Optical Drive (oh joy, more cash), can anyone tell me about life w/o an internal Optical Drive and using an external optical drive? Any suggestions on which model/features I should look for? ...besides one that uses FireWire, which is a must for me.
3. I have an external hard drive which I use to backup my Mac Mini. Now that I don't have an internal Optical Drive, are there any other safety issues I should be thinking about? How about booting the Mac Mini from a disk when it crashes without an internal Optical Drive?
I am totally frustrated at this point!
Cheers, Paul

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
With no disk in the optical drive, it should be almost entirely inactive (it would be expected to make some noise initially at bootup, but should not be active after that). It makes me wonder if the disk was removed correctly, or whether the drive is still 'latched' and thus 'thinks' a disk is in place. In this situation, I'd return the unit to the Apple Store and ask them to resolve the problem, since a failed drive should not create these symptoms.
For external drives, there are a number of good solutions - see http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/ for some examples, starting at around $72. There should be no issue with using an external, and indeed, you are likely to find that even the cheapest of those listed provide you with rather faster performance with rather less fussiness about media brands. You are right to want a FW drive, for best performance.
As long as the external optical is connected and powered, and a valid MacOS install disk inserted, there should be no problems booting to it if required - though you may have to hold the Option key down (Alt if you are using a PC keyboard) to get to the boot loader screen, rather than C to boot directly to the optical drive.

IMac optical drive keeps rejecting discs! Help?

I know after browsing the depths of Google for solutions that this appears to be a common problem, but I figured I would ask the question once more anyway as I didn't really find exactly what I was looking for in other forum posts.
My iMac is now three years old (a late 2009 model) with Intel Core 2 Duo, 3.33GHz processor, currently running Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.8. I have never previously experienced any problems with the optical drive reading disks, but I have been attempting to re-install Adobe CS4 on a few occasions now and each time I insert an installation disk, it whirs horribly for around 10 seconds before ejecting and doing absolutely nothing.
I have tried using a generic disk cleaner multiple times, but it doesn't appear to do anything at all.
Does anyone know why this would keep happening, and really what I should do next?!
I'm still covered by my AppleCare plan until 16/11/2012 so I literally have just over a week's worth of cover remaining. Is it worth me just taking the bloody thing into an Apple store and seeing what they can do?
-LJ

Do other disks show the same issue? If it's just the CS4 installer, the problem is with that disk. Be sure to use the same type of disk (DVD presumably) for your test.
If so, yes, a trip to an Apple store or service provider is in order. Be sure to make a reservation before you go or you may spend a long time waiting to speak to a Mac genius.
Best of luck.

Blu-Ray Optical Drive

Is it possible to install a Blu-Ray optical drive (read/write) into the Mac Pro? Will the Apple software author a BD disk then? I am very interested in being able to do this. Thanks.

I've had a Lacie External Blu-Ray for a while now and can confirm it would also work fine internally. The big issue with Blu-Ray and Apple at the moment is that the only way to author a Blu-Ray disc to work in PS3's and other Blu-Ray drives is to use Adobe Encore/Premiere. Then you come across another issue, Encore/Premiere is not compatible with Leopard. As mentioned here, Toast works flawlessly and is great for backups but that's where it ends.
Blu-Ray drives are coming down all the time so my advice would be wait 2-3 months and by then everything will have moved on hugely now that Blu-Ray appears to be winning the war.
If you want to author HD movies from your camera, buy an AppleTV and export for that. AppleTV is one of the most underrated pieces of Apple hardware ever and if the rumours are true that it will be dropped shortly, get one quick. Loads less hassle than Blu-Ray and works flawlessly.

Crunching noise from the optical drive

Whenever I try to insert a CD into the disk drive, I get the noise from sample-1 under the "Inserting a disk" section from the Apple support link Mac notebooks with optical drives: Noises from the optical drive - Apple Support
I can't find anything on how to fix this yet so I'm hoping somebody here can help. I bought this macbook secondhand off of somebody on craigslist almost a year ago so I have no way to contact them anymore. I've only used this computer as a backup so I've never known this problem existed before now.
Any thoughts?
Edit: The CDs won't play and ejects after about 30 seconds of making that crunching noise without showing up anywhere on my drives.

If your optical drive is making a crunching noise it's probably a goner. You can replace it yourself using the guides at iFixIt https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac
Or better yet replace it with and SSD for lightning fast performance and get a USB external optical drive.

Optical Drive makes noise twice on startup

Hi all,
This problem first appeared when I first changed my RAM from 4GB to 8GB last year.
After a year, the RAM broke down, failed the hardware test.
I replaced it and though the hardware test is passed, the optical drive noise issue persists.
The problem now is: upon startup, it's normal to have the optical drive noise ONCE, but my machine produces a second noise when it can't show up the Apple logo within 3 seconds, i.e. the optical drive searches for the hard drive again. (for a total of 2 times, it lets out the optical drive search noise)
To be more specific, when I restart it after a weird startup, it's normal again with just one optical drive noise (Only occuring upon the first startup).
I'm afraid it might be a repeat of history and the RAM breaks down after one year...
Thanks in advance.

rx,
I am having this exact same problem with my Macbook as well. I am very frustrated. My computer will be 2 yrs old in August. Within the last few months, I have had the battery replaced for burning up the computer (June '07), the optical drive replaced (Nov 07), and the hard drive replaced (Feb '08). It appears I am going to have to take it back to the mac store to get this fixed. This has been going on for a month and I have tried everything including Disk First Aid to try to get it stop! Please post if you find something else! Meanwhile, I will say the apple care warranty was a better investment then the computer itself. I have been VERY DISAPPOINTED with the product and I have had Mac products for years (Mac Performa, iMac, eMac, iPodmini).
Heather

Optical Drive Read Issue

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