Superdrive only reads cds, dvds not working

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
Any advice would be greatly appreciated

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
It's also possible your DVD/CD drive needs cleaning. CD/DVD cleaning kits can be purchased from any store that sells CD/DVDs.
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.
Hopefully, some other more knowledgeable users will chime in here to help you out.
Good luck

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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.
Kevin

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Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
First, reset the SMC > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964 If it doesn't work, take the Mac to an Apple Store

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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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Hi well its almost a year that i have had my mac mini (april 08 will b a year) and i noticed that the other day when i inserted a movie dvd to watch it was making weird loud noises. so i thought nothing of it and ejected it, then i tried putting it back in and it played for about 10 minutes then froze. after this my macmini wont play any dvds what so ever..it will just spit them out after a few seconds i do have to admit that i am an avid movie watcher and i do watch alot of movies on my computer...can it be that i have overused the dvd player in the mini? if so does the warranty cover this? i hope so...also i have tried to play some cds.. and its weird cause it will only read a few not many the ones it doesn't read it spits it out after about a minute and itunes wont open..i really hope someone can really help me on this...thanks!!!!

Hi qnzdiablita-
Optical drives, like other hardware, do fail. If yours has it will be covered under warranty.
I would suggest trying an optical drive cleaning kit first as this is often all that is necessary.
Luck-
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Hi Claire, sounds dire, but some things to try...
Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
In fact, do 3 in a row, takes a bit of time.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

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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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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.
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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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I have a TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633M DVD drive in my laptop and after about 6 months of use, the drive stopped reading/writing DVDs. It still reads CDs fine and occasionally will read a DVD (completely unprovoked and without warning...!) but is very temperamental and will randomly just stop reading a DVD. Often, the drive will eject and give an error message telling me to insert a disc. I'm not sure what to do.
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This question was solved.
View Solution.

The registry thing only works if the drive is completely AWOL from the system so that it does not appear as a drive in "My Computer"....not your issue. The DVD and the CD use different lasers and it is not uncommon for one to go bad and the other not. You can check the function of the DVD by trying to boot from a bootable DVD. If you cannot the drive is bad and needs to be replaced. If it works sometimes and not others it could just need a good cleaning with a DVD lens cleaner.

IMac not reading CDs/DVDs

I'm on an older (late 2009) iMac, just installed Maverick a few days ago, but the problem preceeds this. Basically, my computer will not read CDs or DVDs. Any disc I put into the computer, I hear the whirring noise as if it's reading the disc, but it immediately winds down. It will repeat trying to read the disc 2 or 3 more times, then just spit the disc out.
I tried spraying some compressed air into the slot, and it still won't read most CDs or DVDs, but now when I insert an MP3 CD that my boss had burned for me, the window pops up for when you insert a blank CD, so the drive is reading blank (or previously burned CDs AS blank), but not DVDs or normal CDs (for example, it spit out both a video game installation disc and a movie DVD).
I made sure that if i go to Finder > Preferences > General that "CDs, DVDs and iPods" is checked, and everything looks normal in System Preferences > CDs & DVDs.
Anyone have any ideas?

Another help source (if you haven't already done so).
Go to your OS Help Menu. In the search field type dvd
Click on all the troubleshooting topics & Support Articles that pertain to your issue.
You can also do the same in Disk Utility. Open same up.
At the bottom left of the window, click on the purple button w/the "?" in the middle.
This will bring up the Help Menu.
===============
Try a different brand. Top forum favorites
CDs
FUJI
TDK
Verbatim
DVDs
Maxell
Verbatim
==============
Apple's Disc Burning Quick Assist
Make sure the DVDs are not dirty, smudged and/or scratched.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2000 Mac doesn't start up from install disc
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801 Apple Computers: Troubleshooting the slot-loading SuperDrive
*** Your drive may need cleaning. Cleaning kits can be purchased from any store that sells CD/DVDs. ***

Reads CDs, but not DVDs

I just bought iLife '09 for my iMac G5. When I went to put the disc in, it sat in the computer, spinning for a few minutes, until it spit it out. I tried putting in DVD movies too, and it did the same thing, but it always recognizes CD's and blank CD's. What can I do to install my new program?

Try the follow, since the drive seems to be working to some extent.
Go to System Preferences +CDs & DVDs+ pane. Change something. In this case, a good one may be +When you insert a video DVD+; change it to Ignore. Then insert a movie DVD and note if it mounts but is otherwise ignored. As long as it is not ejected, you may have fixed the issue. You can set it back to *Open DVD Player* or whatever you want, and it should perform that action. Hopefully, it will also now mount the data DVD with iLife.
Please post back, if that does not help.

Superdrive only reads cds, dvds not working

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