Superdrive only reads CD, ejects DVD

Hi,
I have a white Macbook, which is acting really strange. It came with a Matshita superdrive, which only reads CDs, and ejects out all the DVD's.
It used to work fine like 4/5 months back, but now whenever I put in DVD, it spins it for few seconds, stops, again spins and finally decides to eject them out.
Any reasons for this? And how to solve this issue?

So I guess you were not able to get it to boot from the optical drive, by quickly inserting the Mac OS X installation disc after a restart (or start from OFF) and holding down the C key...?
It may be hardware, but I was hoping you could boot the Mac from another system (such as the one on the Mac OS X installation disc), to rule out a problem with your current system installation. You don't happen to have an external USB drive with a Mac OS X installation on it, do you? You could back up your personal data (or clone the entire hard drive volume) to an external drive, do an +Erase and Install+ option reinstallation of Mac OS X, and test the optical drive.
Before you resort to something that drastic, try on more thing... Create a new admin user account in System Preferences Accounts pane.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8235.html
Log out and log in to the new account (don't use Fast Users Switching). Test the optical drive from the new account. It's possible the problem is some corrupted preference file in your normal user account. If so, the drive may work in the new account.

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Superdrive only read dvd installation

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It started when the superdrive dont burn correctly the cd. I reinstall the Snow Leopard from the installation cd. And now only read the installation dvd. No more, no other dvds or cds, Sound its like cycled and never mount the cd. The dvds are clean and with really minor scratch. I have a macbook pro 15". Reinstalled, and the only dvd wants read is, the installation dvd. The dvds was original, (the other ones with try to read)

Hi Nancy
Open the System Preferences for CDs & DVDs and check to make sure that the When's are set to:
When you insert a blank CD: Ask what to do
When you insert a blank DVD: Ask what to do
When you insert a music CD: Open iTunes
When you insert a picture CD: Open iPhoto +(or other photo app.)+
When you insert a Video DVD: Open DVD Player
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Same thing here. Superdrive keeps behaving erratically since Leopard upgrade. Doesn't burn DVDs (some error message saying it doesn't recognize the media). Managed to burn a CD only after full PMU reset but doesn't read CDs anymore (burnt a blank CD on a iMac at work and my mini says the CD is blank). Reads movie rental DVDs ok though (but I don't care, I just want it to work).
Same sort of thing happened to me last year whilst running Tiger. Apple changed the Superdrive. That very model of Superdrive is a piece of rubbish and it looks like Apple will have to change it again. Very glad I tool the 3-year Applecare warranty.
So much for the "it just works", hey?.

IMac G4 superdrive only reads DVDs after install, not CDs-- HELP

I just installed leopard on my iMac G4 and now it only reads DVDs. It will not read CDs. I tried installing iLife and Office from CDs and it does not read them. However, it will play all DVDs just fine. Leopard itself seems to work amazing, only problem so far is the CD issue.
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ok... so I unplugged it for a couple minutes. Then, booted it back up holding commandoption+pr to refresh the PRAM. This seemed to work when the CD is in the drive. It will read whatever CD is in the Drive. But, if I eject it and then try to reinsert it, it doesn't work anymore. I don't know what is wrong. Do you think that the battery needs to be replaced or something? Can anyone help me?????
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Superdrive can read and burn dvds but CANNOT read or burn CDs??

My DVR-107D can read and burn DVD's, but all of a sudden it cannot even read or mount a cd. It also cannot burn CD's. I've run 2 cleaning discs, and even manually cleaned the lens. I feel it may be a software issue at this point... Any ideas?? Finder is set to open CDs and DVDs to the desktop.

Hi
There are two lenses in the drive. It is possible for one to fail while the other still functions. I manually cleaning the lenses made no difference, it is quite possible that aspect of the drive is dead.
You may want to try from a different admin User account (and with a third party app such as Toast, in addition to Finder, iTunes, iPhoto, Disc Utility)

Superdrive only reads Cds, DVDs are spit out, and burning always fails.

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA:
Firmware Revision: AE38
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: No
this is the information about my drive. I never installed the infamous 2.1 superdrive update, so i dont know if this issue is related. My driver stills reads cds, so it isnt totally dead. Any help would be sooooo much appreciated.
"Media: No" seems like the most likely culprit, what can i do to fix that? My brother has the exact same issue with his identical model of MBP (2.33ghz C2D).

{quote:title=..::Tom::.. wrote:}{quote}
Thanks. Of course I meant an erase and install.
I could understand it being the battery if no discs worked at all, but why would the drive work with the apple discs and no others? Is there a way of testing the battery without opening up the case and replacing it?
Testing the pram battery? Yes, make sure your PowerBook is set to the correct date and time. Unplug the PowerBook from the mains and remove your main battery. Wait a couple of minutes then put everything back to normal and start it. Make sure you also have turned off in the date and time setup the ability to use a network time server.
If your PowerBook still has the correct date and time your pram battery is working.
Why only certain disks? As I mentioned in my previous posting if the lens is dirty this could be the problem. For example on PowerBook I just worked on it was not reading disks until I happened to put in one particular one that it read. That told me the problem was intermittent and that the drive was working to a degree. Since this laptop was quite dirty/dusty I figured it could be a dirty lens since it is fairly easy for dirt to work it's way into the drive.
Took the quick and easy way out, however if it starts to act up again I may have to pull apart the drive I use a high quality photo lens cleaning brush to give it wipe but do not use any pressure as you can damage the wiring going into the lens and of course do not do this with the hardware powered! In a worse case scenario I use a dab on Kodak lens cleaning solution on a wadded piece of lens tissue but again I don't recommend this approach unless you're really really really gentle.
There are also cleaning CD's and the Allsop one isn't bad as it has a small row of brushes attached to it that wipe the lens when it passes by, my fear is causing damage if it knocks the lens and some VRDS drives this will not work with.
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Superdrive only reads half the files on a DVD

I am running Mac OS X v10.3.9 on a 1.25 ghz G4 iMac.
I got a commercially produced data DVD for Christmas. I don't know if it is dual layer or what, but it contains 5.35 GB of mostly acrobat files.
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I rebuilt my permissions and no improvement. Any ideas what else I should try?
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Could the disc(s) in question have been burned using a utility that allowed
multiple sessions; and not been set to be used in both Mac and PC?
Some can do that and not be recognized. Third party disc burning utilities
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Help!
My almost 1 year old imac has stopped reading dvds, when you put a video dvd/ dvd+-r/w it spits them out, but this doesnt happen with cds, i dont get a message on osx or anything
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Make sure the DVDs are not cracked, smudged and/or dirty. See the following article: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50448 How to Handle and Clean CD and DVD Discs
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I would give Apple a call prior to your 1 year warranty running out if you do not have the 3 year AppleCare Protection Plan & see what they have to say. At least get a case# in case you do actually have a hardware problem prior to your 1 year warranty running out.
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I can not boot from my USB.
Some people have said Bootcamp will not allow you to but there is a work-around by going into .info and editing in my iMac version via textedit, which I have done.
Still can't boot from USB.
The USB has been formatted to Mac journal and all windows files copied from DVD to the USB and there is an .iso on the USB also.
Still can't boot from USB.
I have partitioned my Hard drive via Disk Utility but can't find a way to install windows on said partition since it never appears in Startup Disk.
Starting to believe there is a conspiracy here.
Please help.

Hi genejitsu,
Did you happen to find the cause of this? My Macbook Pro is having the exact same issue. Only my Windows 7 discs don't work and they aren't scratched and nice and clean. It's both the 32 and 64 DVDs that don't work.
Cheers
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Hey, anyone have any ideas?
My CD burner and player work great, I burn off of it all the time. However if I try to insert a DVD it makes noises, like it's trying to read but spits it back out. I tried resenting it but nothing is working.
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I am having the same issue and it does notappear to be a software issues unless it is a firmware one....
normal CDs enter the drive and mount just fine yet DVDs do not. The Dvds that I insert into the drive will not mount and the drive kicks them out a few seconds after I put them in. NOw this seems to only occor for movie DvDs, DvDs that have minor scratching, but are still readable in my MDD G4 desktop and certain commercial game disks.
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The discussion linked above does not pretain to this issue. as this is a more select issue that seems to be more hardware related than simple prefrences related.

Superdrive only reads CD, ejects DVD

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