Serious Mac Mini DVD Drive issue!

Ok guys, having big troubles with my Minis disc drive at the minute!
Heres what happened…
Tried to copy some files off a DVD so that I could make several copies of it for my grandfather. The Disc is a home made one that he made himself, complete with a label over the top of the disc.
When I put the disc in, it was a little noisy, but nothing unusual. When spinning the disc to take the files off however, the whirring became a loud vibrating/grinding noise, and went on for quite some time. It then slowed down, until it eventually stopped. At this point, the DVD drive itself (and not the Mac!) started playing an on off tone that sounded less than happy. Sounded quite similar to an alarm of some kind. Strangely it was clearly a hardware noise, and not a software noise.
Pressing the Eject button on the keyboard did nothing, reboot, the warning tone continued, and only after pressing the on and off button twice to get it to hibernate then wake up, did it want to spit the disk out.
I just put a standard film DVD in now to see if the drive was working, it took it in quite happily, whirred away fine, no horrible noises, but didnt find the disk, and now wont eject it for love nor money.
When going into System profiler to see if the Disc drive has some osrt of error status or anything hardware related messages, it causes System profiler to crash. All the other menu items work fine, but going to disc reading crashes it everytime
Message was edited by: BennyboyOxtoby

I think the lesson here is: DON'T use labels on discs (or tell your grandfather not to!)
You may have damaged your disk drive. If you are OK with computer maintenance, you can change it yourself for just the cost of a new one - £30-£40 from eBay - much, much less than getting Apple to do it.

Similar Messages

Mac Mini - DVD Drive malfunction?

Hello,
For the last 2 weeks, my MacMini's DVD drive doesn't work normally :
- trying to burn an audio CD doesn't work if I don't reduce the burning speed thru iTunes parameters
- a CD bought on the Apple store with a full licence software when inserted in the DVD drive is "seen" as a blank CD
- same thing for a CD created by a friend
This behaviour isn't taking place every time. If I insert a DVD with a movie for example, it perfectly works and the DVD Reader software starts normally.
What can I do? Where can I find information on the way of replacing myself the DVD drive of my computer?
Thanks for any help
EB
MacMini Intel Mac OS X (10.4.9)
MacMini Intel Mac OS X (10.4.9)

EBUTZ, welcome to the Mac Mini Forum!
Interestingly enough, another poster from France described her experiences in replacing her DVD drive about 6 months ago in these forums.
Personally, I'd recommend buying a tray-loading, firewire external drive. It will be faster, and less fussy about media than the Mini's Superdrive. And probably cheaper and definitely easier than installing an internal drive.

Mac Mini DVD Drive fail and upgrading to Snow Leopard

Hey, my Mac Mini has a dvd drive failure, ir reads cd's but just spits out dvd's. It no longer burns cd's either.
The main question is, will I be able to install Snow Leopard from an external dvd drive? As I am thinking about getting one as a burner/player instead of paying sky high prices for a new superdrive to be fitted in the Mini.
Many thanks for any help

Sure,
Here's the methodolgy from Apple:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Here's a video from OWC, which shows how to install a HD or an Optical Drive into your Mini:
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macmini06-08/
There's probably more than one slot-loading drive model that will work in your Mini, and you may even gain a new capability, like dual-layer DVD burning capability, if you do a little homework on the models that will work for your Mini.
Peace to you,
C. Livingstone

New Mac Mini dvd drive replacement

hey has anyone tried to replace the DVD drive with the Sony BC-5600S bluray drive
its sata and the right size and its a slot drive, i really want to give it a shot
the drive can be had online for around $100. anyone tried this or think its possible?

Well I got a bluray drive in my PC rig I could pull out and connect to my mini and test this out but that's way too much work besides I could just google it and find out which I did:
It looks like it works in bootcamp just need to make sure to watch out for some stuff
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1213777&tstart=4
Someone was even nice enough to write a step-by-step on how to do it:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=84989
p.s. Since the 9400 video that comes with the 2009 mini is HDCP compliant you should be able to use the DVI adapter it came with and you'll get smooth video since the 9400 was designed for high definition playback!
Message was edited by: davi angel

HELP! Mac Mini Server Journaling issue during reinstall

H E L P !
Mac Mini Server Journaling issue...
Hi there,
I have taken on a nearly new Mac Mini Server running Snow Leopard.
It has a RAID set up already.
When I try to reinstall the OS from the original disk the installation willl not let me select the drive as it says it is not journaled.
I have then opened Disk Utility and selected the main HD (there is one HD plus 2 Raid slices listed).
From this point on there are no options available:
The only 2 tabs above the right hand window are 'First Aid' and 'RAID'.
First Aid shows all 4 options greyed out.
Selecting the main HD and then going to File>Enable Journaling will not work as 'Enable Journaling' is greyed out.
Deleting the RAID does not work either, as the HD (mirrored RAID set) and both RAID sclices have the padlock icon next to them.
Can anyone help?
I really need to reinstall the OS and set the machine up with a TimeMachine Capsule asap!
Many thanks,
Haberdashery

Sorted!
All is good now : )

Any solution to DVD drive issue post Lion install yet?

Any solution to DVD drive issue post Lion install yet?

Since installing Lion no DVDs are being read by the superdrive, this is a problem that has been highlighted by quite a lot of people.
CDs are being read fine.
After inserting the DVD there is some noise, sounds like it is trying to pickup the DVD then spits it back out.
Previous posts from other people:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/245917-heads-up-lion-supe rdrive-fake-glitch-possibly.html
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3199297?start=15&tstart=0

Can mac's DVD-drive be accessible for Windows-based systems?

I've tried to share mac's DVD-drive to PC and it's failed.
I know there is the option in Sharing menu, but it doesn't work.
So someone has an idea about the issue?
Here my steps to share DVD-drive to PC:
- select Sharing menu in System preference;
- turn on DVD or CD sharing;
- set "Ask me before allowing others..." check box;

You can share the DVD drive however it sounds like Windows may not have a DVD sharing feature like OS X has. I would recommend also asking in a MS Windows forum to see if your version of Windows offers that feature. Please carefully read:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777?viewlocale=en_US
You will see Remote Disc is designed for OS X machines to access DVD/CD drives on other OS X or Windows machines. It is NOT designed for MS Windows machines to access the DVD drive on an OS X machine.

My mac mini hard drive is failing. I am no longer under warranty. Do you know how much it cost to have Apple replace the hard drive? or How I can replace it myself?

MY mac mini hard drive is failing. I am no longer under warranty. Do you know how much it cost to have Apple replace the hard drive? or How I can replace it myself?

You can do it yourself. I did on my 2009 Mini
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac_Mini
Also, this place sells HSDs and has install videos.
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

Programs repeatedly crashing on my late 2012 Mac Mini Fusion Drive

I have a late 2012 Mac Mini Fusion Drive 2.6ghz, 16gig RAM running Mac OSX 10.9.4 . For the past week or so I have had a number of programs - both Apple and third party apps crash repeatedly, I have repaired permissions and restarted numerous times but nothing seems to fix it. For example Mail would crash each time I cancelled a password being accepted by Mail in a particular account, Safari has crashed for various reasons. Apple Motion has also crashed more times in the past day or so than it ever has in the past year. It's crashing when I try to add a point or node to a line in an animation I'm finishing.
Does anybody have any idea why this is happening now and does anybody know how to fix it?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the name of the crashed application or process. For example, if iTunes crashed, you would enter "iTunes" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ User Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of crash reports. The name of each report starts with the name of the process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report related to the process in question. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

ITunes for 64bit Windows 7 Driver/CD/DVD/Drive Issues-

Hi There
I am sure that there are many many users out there suffering the same frustration as me in regard to ITunes just not working properly with Windoews 7 (64Bit).
I have been trying to solve the mystery of "ITunes for Windows Registry Settings Warning When Opening Itunes.
I have tried all the recommended actions to correct this problem without any success and I do mean ALL.
Below is a screen shot of my registry, can anyone see anything wrong with it?
In the meantime (Last four months) I have stopped using ITunes and instead have used Digital 7, this will be my very last attempt to get ITunes working properly, failure will mean consigning ITunes to the same place as any other Software that does not do wshat it says on the can.
I hope someone can help.

That's good that it is in device manager, but what about in Computer with the rest of the drivers?
Also, are the drives listed in Computer and device manager or just device manager?
I want to verify if the symptoms are present for a particular software issue before looking at other issues. I really doubt it is a driver issue at this point. If it was, then I suspect the issue would be present from day one.
It could be that the lens has dust buildup preventing it from working properly. They do make CD cleaning kits that have a special CD designed to clean the laser as it passes over the lens. If you happen to have one of these, or access to one, I recommend trying this step to make sure it isn't as simple as dust buildup interfering with the laser.
It could also be hardware failure, but I would like to try a few other steps before coming to that conclusion.
It may be worth reviewing this document as it covers a lot of the most common issues behind DVD drive issues. Feel free to skip any steps you have already tried.
Let me know what happens.
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

I still have Cd/DVD drive issues

The CD is ejected after a short while and never mounted. I have cleaned the optics of the CD drive and reset my PRAM.
Has anybody discovered a complete solution for this problem.

That's good that it is in device manager, but what about in Computer with the rest of the drivers?
Also, are the drives listed in Computer and device manager or just device manager?
I want to verify if the symptoms are present for a particular software issue before looking at other issues. I really doubt it is a driver issue at this point. If it was, then I suspect the issue would be present from day one.
It could be that the lens has dust buildup preventing it from working properly. They do make CD cleaning kits that have a special CD designed to clean the laser as it passes over the lens. If you happen to have one of these, or access to one, I recommend trying this step to make sure it isn't as simple as dust buildup interfering with the laser.
It could also be hardware failure, but I would like to try a few other steps before coming to that conclusion.
It may be worth reviewing this document as it covers a lot of the most common issues behind DVD drive issues. Feel free to skip any steps you have already tried.
Let me know what happens.
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

Creating Partition in Mac Mini Hard Drive

i Have buy a mac mini a week ago, but before three days ago, some file got corrupted, and it does not start, only the password screen appears, when i entered the password, the screen appears again. and it continues. Now i want to partition the mac mini hard drive. i have only one drive, and i want to create another partition in the hard drive. when i create another partition through the disk utility , i gives error, and cannot create the partition. i acutally want that first i make partition in the hard drive, and after using the "restore from time machine option" to install the mac osx lion in the system. Please help me in make the partition in the hard drive.

Apple themselves don't specify hard drive RPM because they buy a number of different drives, some apparently 4200 some apparently 5400.
It's no surprise that your retailer wants you to buy a G5 though, and is trying to upsell one based on the minis weaknesses - after all, they get more money from a G5 sale than from a mini. They may also be considering your planned use of Photoshop as a stumbling block to effective use of a mini, but the question really is what you intend to use Photoshop to do. If you're a hobbyist, the system is fine and will work more than adequately - particularly if you max out the RAM. If you're a professional user with pro-level expectations, then a mini likely wouldn't be sufficient, not so much due to the drive speed (powerbook users have run Photoshop verisons for years quite happily on what are predominently 4200rpm drives) but because for pro work, Photoshop needs a lot of hard drive space and a great deal of RAM.
On the basis of what you've posted, I'd say your retailer is more interested in their profit than your need. Chances are, if you run PS on the G4 listed in your profile, you're already running on a drive of similar general performance.

Using a Mac's DVD drive to load a DVD on Windows XP

I have a Windows XP machine which does not have a DVD drive, and a Mac laptop running Tiger which does - and some ethernet cable!
Is it possible to network the two computers together and use the Mac's DVD drive to access and run the DVD on the Windows computer? If so, how would I go about doing this? I have no experience of file sharing over Windows.
Thanks for the help

Hi Thomas,
I don't think you can, but it won't hurt to try... well, it won't hurt the Mac anyway.
If all else fails, you could try making a bootable image of it, there are several XP utilities for that, and this NetBoot might work...
http://tdonline.com/bootdisk.htm

What is the brand of optical disk medium to use with mac MINI super drive?

TDK brand of blank optical disk medium on my mac (super drive) is not reading the optical disk I put in there to burn to. The genius at the apple store put in a Memorex brand of optical disk medium and it worked. What is the consensus for buying blank medium that will work with the .mac MINI super drive it seems TDK doesn't work? What is the brand and type to go with?

You need a regular optical digital cable, often called a Toslink, with a 3.5 mm miniplug adapter on the Mac mini end. The port is a combo port. When you insert the optical cable's miniplug into the port, because it is a tiny bit longer than a regular 3.5 mm miniplug, it activates the digital audio. Usually the port's output is analog by default.
Dah•veed

This has to be a Mac OS X driver issue - My Bluetooth Mouse just this secon

My Bluetooth Mouse just this second stop working.

My Bluetooth Mouse just this second stop working.
And? Are you expecting someone to be able to diagnose and solve the problem for you based on that statement?
Why are you so certain it "has to be a Mac OS X driver issue"? Have you done something to the Bluetooth system software +"just this second"+ which has caused it stop working?
Some other possibilities are:
• Batteries could've run out.
• Bluetooth hardware in the mouse could've failed
• Bluetooth hardware in the Mac could've failed
• Bluetooth preferences could be corrupted
• Mac and Mouse may have lost their "pairing" info
Unfortunately as you've not provided any information about the problem whatsoever, not even told us what brand or model of Bluetooth mouse you're referring to, or mentioned *a single thing* you've tried already to resolve this, its impossible to help any further.

Serious Mac Mini DVD Drive issue!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for