Optical drive sputtering/clicking at startup

Setting up my mom's Mac Mini, brand new, & startup the computer's optical drive auto load mechanism sounds like the it is trying to find a optical disk, 3 or 4 times, clicks and sputters. Then once the OS starts loading from the HD it stops.
Anyone experiencing similar Mini startup issues? Is this a known Mini CoreSolo issue? Thanks!

I got a (brand new) Mac mini 1.83Mhz Core Duo in December and when I start or re-start it the same problem arises sometimes. It has even left the optical drive in a state where I cannot put a disk in and so I've had to restart it. Whether it's a hardware problem I don't know - though I do know that if it becomes a major problem I will return it, during the warranty period, for service. My Mac mini G4 - which I've had about a year - has never had this problem though, of course, the optical drive does whir on booting. Actually, I try not to have to boot - I preferring to leave the machines on as they are both principally media centres. However, I have Elgato's EyeTV software (version 2.3.3) running to drive one of their DTT sticks in each case and that necessitates it almost every day. Now that's a story for another thread which I may start when I've done some testing - though I could do without that as I've got plenty of other things to do.
Mac mini (x 2) Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1.5Mhz G4 with 1Gb RAM and 1.83Mhz Core Duo both with 80Gb Hard Drives

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Optical Drive/s eject on startup - SSD Slow Boot time also

Hi guys,
Been researching this problem over and over with no avail.
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240 SSD
3 x 1T 7200 RPM Drives (bays 2 - 4)
8-Core 2.4
DVD Super drive
LG BluRay Drive
Sonnet USB 3.0 Card - (Nothing plugged in)
Black Magic Intensity Pro - (Nothing plugged in)
Stock Graphics Card
USB Keyboard (mac)
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FCPX / Motion
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Lion 10.7.3 FRESH / CLEAN
I have done a fresh install of lion 10.7.3!
I have selected my SSD as started up disk
I have reset the PRAM
I have reset SMC
I have no apps running at startup
I have trashed the prefs
I have run disk utility and repair permisions on the SSD boot Drive
I have let Onyx do its thing with cleanup etc.
When I boot, the white screen appears for upto 30sec - 1.5mins, once I see the apple logo, it takes about 10sec to give me desktop and all is good. Everything is lightning fast, and I couldn't imagine my machince lacking performance in any way besides boot time. Shutdown is approx 2 seconds.
It appears that it waits for other possible boot drives, then gives up and boots from the SSD.
Sometimes my optical drives open during white screen on boot???
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Me brain-storming & thinking out loud about how I would go about troubleshoot this:
Every time you zap pram you need to reset the default boot volume.
I never use Onyx after looking at it and keeping it around for awhile, I have mixed idea that people are looking for a problem to fix and do I trust it? gets mentioned enough.
LG BR - can you take that out of the picture to test with it not connected?
Wacom Tablet - take it out of the equation for testing
USB3 - CallDigit? that has USB3 + SATA and looks and sounds good.
Try w/o it also.
Just because there is nothing connected - I've seen a cable that just by being plugged in was the cause of slow boot.
Clone the OS to SSD? sounds like you didn't do that which in the past has had mixed results (sometimes with bad consequences and hard to know why, too many variables) but a clean install should be perfect. One person's though took "ages" to do what should have been very quick.
I assume you would also clone the SSD to backup as image or to another drive.
How does it boot from a 300GB partition off a platter?
3 x 1TB: are these an array? do any of them have a system on it? sounds like you don'[t as it might otherwise choose non-SSD boot drive.
An SSD from restart sometimes is fast(er) but from cold boot the system may not know it is there and how to send a signal to it?
What does OWC say? about SSD, about the USB3 card.
Even having 32GB RAM can take longer to POST.

DVD Optical drive is unresponsive

I have Intel iMac 24". It has been nice since I bought it in Feb, '08.
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Other problem is, on startup, iMac tries to mount the optical drive (but it couldn't) and makes the startup slow by 1 minute. Is there anyway to disable optical drive detection in the startup? I am not able to find any nvram command for that.
Any help will be appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Rohit
P.S. I took it to Apple store and they told me $250 for replacing the optical drive. (I didn't opt that option, $250 is more) so I will buy an external optical drive. I see lot of people have this optical drive problem. Does anyone know what is wrong in the iMac?
But turning on the machine and on wake up, optical drive does make some sound.

Well, there's a small possibility that the flex cable that connects the drive to the logic board simply went bad. This would be cheaper than the whole drive replacement, but it involves removing the logic board from the system to properly route it, so I definitely wouldn't recommend the average person attempt it.
Instead of an Apple Store, try going to a local AASP and see if you can talk them into just replacing the flex cable to see if that will fix it. And if not, they can replace the optical drive.
It'd be a lot cheaper to replace the flex cable though. That's like a $10 part as opposed to about $150 for the optical drive.

T400: Optical Drive Power Off, Then Disappears

I'm running Win 7 x64 on a T400, and recently installed Power Manager 3.12. Since 3.11, I've enabled the "Automatic Optical Drive Power Off" feature. In Vista, this worked fine, where once the drive was powered off (and the light on it would go off), I'd eject it and it'd automatically power back on. Or, in My Computer, I could right-clik on it and power it back on.
Now, in Win 7, once it powers off, it disappears from My Computer completely. On top of that, the light on the drive stays on, and after a while a different thing shows up in My Computer under "Other" and all it says is "(Powered Off)", but it's not the optical drive. Clicking "Power On" on this phantom device does nothing, and ejecting and closing the optical drive does not get it to show up again either.
The only way I've found to re-enable the optical drive is to remove it physically from the laptop and re-insert it. Then, it'll reappear in My Computer, but the mysterious Powered Off device still remains as well.
Is anyone else having a similar issue? I'm leaning toward the assumption it's one of the many bugs in the Win 7 Power Manager (that along with the Dock Eject Action not functioning properly). I'm at the point where I'm ready to just completely uninstall the Power Manager, as it only seems to cause more problems than it solves.

Sorry to bump this thread, but it seems that this issue is still not resolved. I have just completed an install of windows 7 on my T400, which orginally had windows vista preloaded. Everything is fine, execept for this optical drive issue. Upon auto-power off of the optical drive, the ultrabay slot light does not turn off even though my computer reports the optical drive as powered off. The drive then becomes inoperable until restart, even if you plug in the computer. By inoperable, I mean that windows no longer recognizees it.
Disabling the feature in power manager is not solving the issue however, because that also removes the power saving advantage that this feature has. I have installed both power manager (3.40) and the power managment driver. They were first installed using system update, and I have since removed and reinstalled them manually with no change. I have googled for a solution, but I have only found this thread to describe the problem most accurately. I don't know what I can do to solve this problem.
I have switchable graphics, and the optical drive is a dvd writer,

Optical Drive Power software command line switch

Hello!
Are there any command line switches for the "Optical Drive Power" - TPSODDCtl.exe software? This software is part of toshiba power saver package. I would like to set it up to turn off my optical drive power on windows startup.
Thanks,
Milos

Hello Milos
I use Toshiba notebook over 10 years now and something like this is not known to me. I think the answer to your question you can get from Toshiba software development department only.
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Optical drive slow/noisy

Hi, I saw a lot of other topics about the optical drive concerning the 10.4.6 update but I don't think my problem falls under that. About 6 weeks ago I sent my powerbook (15" 1.25 ghz superdrive) into apple after it had started to make a very loud buzzing/grinding noise and the computer was slow to respond. They sent it back after a few days and the technicians had replaced the hard-drive. The apple store genius however had insisted that the problem was the optical drive.
Everything seemed fine for a while until a few days ago when I noticed that it took around 2 mins for a CD to come up in iTunes. The optical drive was clicking away and spinning up and down and being generally wacky. Eventually the CD came up and it seemed ok. I ripped songs from the CD and now I notice in a few of the tracks there are little skips or blips of the song that are cut out for a split second and its not part of the music on the CD.
I've also had it simply eject the CD after 10 or so seconds of being in the drive. Also i've witnessed a song playing off of the CD then it stop for 10 seconds, then start playing again. Finally, the other day I stuck a DVD in to watch and the optical drive sounded like a lawnmower. It was very loud, vibrating my whole desk. I was scared but it calmed down after a minute or so and played the whole movie without any trouble. Right now its playing a CD and its making clicking and whirring noises more often than i've ever noticed.
I'm not sure about the burning capabilities. Thanks for any help, it's appreciated. I have applecare so if it needs serviced its not a problem.
Thanks again
Ben S.

Your drive may no longer be seating properly and the its connection has gone funky. Also there might be a firmware update for your computer/drive. Either way i'd head down to the apple store again and recreate the problem for them.
In the meantime you can repair permissions and run cron scripts. You could also do a hardware test to see if any errors are detected.

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...
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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).
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Optical Drive Starts Up then Down Over and Over on Startup

I have a first gen macbook that won't startup. When I turn it on I can hear the optical drive start up and then stop and then back again, over and over. The frequency is probably a little faster than once per second.
Both the battery and the hard drive have been completely removed (just for testing, it does the same with them in). I've tried resetting the PRAM but again, it does the same thing.
There is no disc in the drive, but there was at one point, but magically I got it out.
Any suggestions on what I could try?

Disconnect everything connected to the computer and try an SMC reset, Gustabubble,
see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
+Shut down the computer.+
+Disconnect the MagSafe power adapter from the computer, if it's connected.+
+Remove the battery.+
+Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.+
+Release the power button.+
+Reconnect the battery and MagSafe power adapter.+
+Press the power button to turn on the computer.+
If this doesn't fix it, though, I'm afraid it is probably hardware related.
Are you absolutely sure it is genuinely shutting down? The Nvidia 8600 GPU issue , which is subject of a free extended repair program - see http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377 , can cause symptoms that look/sound like a shutdown in the "SantaRosa" model MBPs , though you will usually see a faint glimmer from the sleep light if you look very closely. (I'm not sure which MBP you have from your description, so this program may, or may not, apply to you)
Rod

Clicking sound on optical drive

I tried burning cd or dvd on my macbook, and i keep hearing a clicking sound ,and gives me an error, so it ejects the cd or dvd, so that means my optical drive needs to be replaced?

My superdrive recently gave me problems. It would take in the disc and then try and read it but would make a unusually loud clicking noise and after 15-20 seconds would stop and then try and read it again. I bought a new superdrive online and fitted it myself and now have the latest version superdrive which takes all discs and dual layer discs (my original superdrive did not support dual layer discs).
My drive had seen a lot of use over the past year and a half and I wasn't shocked that it died.
If its in warranty give Apple a call or have it replaced (although they are expensive) if you cant afford to buy a new internal superdrive then buy an external dvd writer for about half the price.
Dib.

MBP Optical Drive, clicking and spinning wildly

I just received my new MBP yesterday and discovered a problem with the optical drive. When I insert a CD the drive makes a series of loud clicking noises, presumably as it tries to mount the media on the spindle, and then starts spinning up and out of control, sounding much like an airplane. Some data can be read and then it fails.
I tested with another CD, same problem. I then tested with a DVD, and it actually did fire up and play, and didn't quite sound like an airplane, however there was still a very noticeable hum which is loud enough to still be deemed unacceptable.
After trolling the forums here, it sounds as though other individuals are indeed having the same problem. I have tried various suggested resolutions from other posts with no luck. Unfortunately there is no genius bar close to me, so I am probably going to be stuck sending it back which is just a major disappointment since I was counting the minutes till my MBP arrived.
Update: For what it's worth... in both cases, the discs do not appear to be getting damaged.

I had a macbook that the optical drive needed to replaced for similar reasons. I would strongly recommend you visit the apple store and/or go apple support and ask them to replace your optical drive. Its a pretty quick install for them.
Please remember to mark helpful/solved replies appropriately.

Clicking Sound Near Optical Drive?

Occasionally if my MacBook Pro shakes a little, I'll hear a little clicking sound. It sounds like it's coming from either the optical drive or just below it, to the right of the trackpad. Should I be concerned? I only noticed this after my computer froze once, and since then it occasionally freezes, but returns to normal after 10-15 seconds.

Why do you shake your computer, for fun or for profit? Your computer is not an iPod. The clicking might be the sensor protecting the hard drive. That scenario makes sense especially when you mentioned that the computer froze. Here's some advice: don't shake your computer. You risk damaging the internal components, or dropping your computer.

Optical drive clicking

I've got this problem with the optical drive clicking loudly (twice) after the computer is woken up from sleep. I don't exactly know when it started, but I don't think it was there when I first bought the G5.
What do you guys hear when you wake it up from sleep? Just the fans spinning up for a second, or do you also hear the optical drive click?

Apparently the clciking sound is supposed to be normal. Oh well...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=591755&#591755

Optical drive tries to find a disk at startup and when getting out of sleep

I don't think it's a macbook only problem. I had tried to install photoshop but at a certain point, the computer freezes and I had to shutdown. When I startup, it freezes after five seconds when loading up everything everytime, but the mouse still moves. I finally found out about the safe mode so I solved my inability to work with my macbook.
The problem I have now is that everytime I startup the computer, it wants to find a disk in the optical drive. It only does it once but it does it everytime I startup and also coming out of sleep, any suggestions?

Is the system process to look the optical drive that bad, I mean like sound wise, was it horrible, and what about the time consuming when it look for something in the drive, was it a couple second or it took forever with the beachball rolling. And was it like that since you have it or it just happen after you installed photoshop and freeze.
If it just like couple second, I assume it just default setting from PRAM that instruct optical drive everytime you start up or wake up from sleep to check is there something inside the optical drive that need to be read or spit it out or it could be the lens adjusted/calibrated itself, but I could be wrong on this.
But if it to annoying and you suspect a mal-production, better bring that to apple store and show them and consult with them, probably you will get a better one that is not a mal-production.
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Mac Pro optical drive hardware is causing Leopard to hang on startup

I had installed Leopard on a new internal drive with a clean install. However, everytime I tried to boot, it hanged on the blue screen or took me to the Leopard desktop where it froze.
I called Apple and through the process of elimination they asked to to disconnect my two optical drives...the first is a Sony NEC Optiarc DVD RS AD-7170A that came with the computer. The second is a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-112. After separating the ribbon cable that connects both drives, I was able to successfully boot into Leopard with no problems. That said, Apple regarded my issue as now a hardware issue rather than a software issue...and said I should take the Mac Pro into the local store for repair.
I've tested each of the optical drives individually to see if by hooking them up one by one to see if one will allow the system to boot. But neither one allows me to boot into Leopard successfully. Apple also says that the ribbon cable could also be a possible reason as well.
Before I make the trek to the store, does anyone out there have any similar stories to share with their Mac Pro? I have NOT updated to the latest firmware for the Mac Pro which is EFI 1.2 and I may try that as a last resort. Also, I tried to find any Superdrive firmware updates for the Mac Pro's Sony Optiarc drive on Apple's website, but could not locate any.
Let me know if anyone out there has some info to share on this.
Thanks,
John

Thanks for the reply, but I took it to the apple store today and they ran a full diagnostic test on it. It turns out it really wasn't the optical drive. There was a bad sensor on the logic board causing the power supply fan to run at full blast. Looks like im gonna have to wait even longer to be able to enjoy my mac pro:(

Optical drive being accessed (makes noise) waking from sleep & on startup

On my Macbook Pro, the optical drive makes a noise as though being accessed whenever waking up from sleep mode or powering on. Is this normal behavior?

Yes

Optical drive sputtering/clicking at startup

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