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?

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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.

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

Hi, this is my puzzlement,
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See if a disk cleaner DVD or a few shots of compressed air will cure your problem.
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Combo / Optical Drive detected but not reading CD & DVD

Hi everyone,
Firstly, I apologize if this topic has been covered but I've searched up and down and couldn't find it.
I'm running the following computer:
G4 MDD Dual 1.42Ghz, 1Gb RAM, OS 10.4
My computer has been dormant for about a month now and last night I fired it up with the following problem: _Grey screen with spinning 'loading' icon and it wouldn't get into the desktop_
I managed to successfully boot to the desktop after I did a combination of the following:
1. Reboot in Safe Mode (Shift)
2. Reset NVRAM (Opt + Cmd + O + F)
3. Reset PRAM (Opt + Cmd + P + R)
4. Removed all 3rd party cables
I haven't used the Combo/Optical Drive for about a month now and I decided that maybe I should re-install Tiger. When I inserted the Installer CD, the Combo Drive (1st slot) just ignored it. Initially, Superdrive (2nd slot) also ignores all discs I inserted. After countless restarts, I managed to get the Superdrive to read the G4 Hardware Test CD.
I've done the following:
1. Finder preference is set to not ignore inserted media
2. Tinkered with the Optical drive by unplugging and plugging it back
3. Everything else I could find on the internet regarding troubleshooting it
4. Made sure that the cables are connected properly inside the computer
5. Ran the Apple Hardware Test CD and everything is OK.
6. Checked with the System Profiler and it detects both Optical Drives (1st slot = Combo Drive, 2nd slot = Superdrive).
Now the problem is:
1. Combo Drive does not read any inserted disc (CD & DVD)
2. Superdrive reads but spits them out soon after
3. I can't re-install Tiger
Any advice / suggestions is very much appreciated.

Hi David,
My computer has been dormant for about a month
Have you checked the PRAM Battery, they can cause strange things & last 4+5 years...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/
Combo Drive does not read any inserted disc (CD & DVD)
Opticals do go out, but 2 at once doesn't seem likely. What happens if you open Disk Utility then insert a Disc?
Have you tried a Cleaner CD in them?

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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.

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hi, hopefully someone can help with this -
new macbook pro (couple months old)
i've used the optical drive twice, to burn onto a couple maxell dvd+rw discs - this worked fine.
today, i put one of the discs i'd previously used in, hit "erase" in disk utility ...
since then, the drive won't mount or recognize any blank media ... (the drive just hums for a bit, then nothing)
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MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:
Firmware Revision: DA09
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

ok, just to add to this -
i made a small install of OSX.5.2 (from the MBP install disc) on a FW drive, and booted from that - and lo and behold, blank media is recognized ...
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Windows Server 2012 Storage Spaces Simple RAID 0 VERY SLOW reads, but fast writes with LSI 9207-8e SAS JBOD HBA Controller

Has anyone else seen Windows Server 2012 Storage Spaces with a Simple RAID 0 (also happens with Mirrored RAID 1 and Parity RAID 5) virtual disk exhibiting extremely slow read speed of 5Mb/sec, yet write performance is normal at 650Mb/sec in RAID 0?
Windows Server 2012 Standard
Intel i7 CPU and Motherboard
LSI 9207-8e 6Gb SAS JBOD Controller with latest firmware/BIOS and Windows driver.
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Interestingly, this entire configuration but with two SIIG eSATA 2-Port adapters instead of the LSI 9207-8e, works perfectly with both reads and writes at 670Mb/sec.
I thought SAS was going to be a sure bet for expanding beyond the capacity of port limited eSATA adapters, but after a week of frustration and spending over $5,000.00 on drives, controllers and cabling, it's time to ask for help!
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Has anyone else seen Windows Server 2012 Storage Spaces with a Simple RAID 0 (also happens with Mirrored RAID 1 and Parity RAID 5) virtual disk exhibiting extremely slow read speed of 5Mb/sec, yet write performance is normal at 650Mb/sec in RAID 0?
Windows Server 2012 Standard
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(4) Hitachi 4TB 6Gb SATA Enterprise Hard Disk Drives HUS724040ALE640
(4) Hitachi 4TB 6Gb SATA Desktop Hard Disk Drives HDS724040ALE640
Hitachi drives are directly connected to LSI 9207-8e using a 2-meter SAS SFF-8088 to eSATA cable to six-inch eSATA/SATA adapter.
The Enterprise drives are on LSI's compatibility list. The Desktop drives are not, but regardless, both drive models are affected by the problem.
Interestingly, this entire configuration but with two SIIG eSATA 2-Port adapters instead of the LSI 9207-8e, works perfectly with both reads and writes at 670Mb/sec.
I thought SAS was going to be a sure bet for expanding beyond the capacity of port limited eSATA adapters, but after a week of frustration and spending over $5,000.00 on drives, controllers and cabling, it's time to ask for help!
Any similar experiences or solutions?
1) Yes, being slow either on reads or on writes is a quite common situation for storage spaces. See references (with some of the solutions I hope):
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/a58f8fce-de45-4032-a3ef-f825ee39b96e/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2012/10/10/windows-server-2012-storage-spaces-is-it-for-you-could-be.aspx
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserver8gen/thread/64aff15f-2e34-40c6-a873-2e0da5a355d2/
and this one is my favorite putting a lot of light on the issue:
http://helgeklein.com/blog/2012/03/windows-8-storage-spaces-bugs-and-design-flaws/
2) Issues with SATA-to-SAS hardware is also very common. See:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverClustering/thread/5d4f68b7-5fc4-4a3c-8232-a2a68bf3e6d2
StarWind iSCSI SAN & NAS

Optical Drive Read Issue

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Thanks, iCare, for taking the time to respond.
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Firmware Revision: ZF1E
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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
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Dear Cine Alter,
If the two drives are appearing on your desktop that would suggest physical connections are OK. If you have not already done so, start up from you OSX CD and rebuild your directory. Then rebuild Permissions, Restart and see how you go. This process should clean up any directory corruptions which may be responsible for the problem. You should run both of these programs monthly to ensure corruptions do not creep into your system.
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My DVD drive reads but does not write/copy (Satellite A60)

I need help,I use a laptop Satellite A60-106 series
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You can reply to [email protected]

Hello Alfred
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I am pretty sure that warranty is still valid and you should contact service partner in your country. Let them check the unit.
Bye

Trying to access SMB share, can read but not write, I use the domain account to autenticate and domain account has access to the share. its a samba domain and im a Windows Admin by trade.

I have two I Mac's Intel i7 models.
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Peace Out

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soo..another woe with my work emac...
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Name : HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B
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Media Name : HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B Media
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Optical drives reads but wont write after swap

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