Superdrive refuses to burn anything

Hey my emacs superdrive wont burn at all, it still reads all disks fine.
At first i could just use a lower speed but now that wont work, is there any easy fix or is it buggered an i gotta get a new one?

stilivn,
Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Have you tried using a CD lens cleaner disc for a couple of passes? If there's a buildup of grime on the optical disc's lenses (CD and DVD operate at different wavelengths), that can prevent burning while still allowing discs to be read.
Have you tried different, fresh CD-R and DVD-R blank discs? Unused discs can degrade over time; refer to Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs.
If the optical disc's LEDs have degraded and no longer put out enugh power to burn discs, you can try vendors such as Small Dog Electronics for an external Firewire optical drive as the easiest replacement.

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UJ-846 Superdrive unable to burn DVD+R

Hello,
It seems that I can't burn anything on any DVD+R with my superdrive (ref. UJ-846). I've tried with iDVD (initially I wanted to burn one of my home-made movie on DVD), Disc Burner, DiscBlaze, Dragon Burn. Each time, the answer is the same : media is not writable. Is it normal for a "Superdrive" advertised as "Universal"?
Is there a way to solve this issue, for the moment I don't have any other media within reach and anyway, not to be able to burn a DVD+R is like not to be able to burn anything...

More info after some additional testing:
Burned a few DVDs using the internal UJ-846 and Pioneer DVR-109 (in a firewire case). The source image was a Tiger DVD (from an earlier Mac). I used Burnz and Disk Utility to burn two DVD+R's (HP brand) in the DVR-109 and Toast and Disk Utility to burn the same brand discs (and a DVD+RW) in the UJ-846.
In the case of the DVD+RW, I received the message that it could not calibrate the device to the media (both in Toast and Disk Utility).
From the DVR-109 burns, my old G3 iBook spit out the resulting discs as unreadable. The iMac (UJ-846) did read the discs but took about 30 seconds from the time of disc insertion until the window showing the Installer appeared completely. The DVR-109 displayed this window 16 seconds after insertion.
I then burned (using Toast) a data DVD using the same DVD+R media. This disc was burned as "Mac & PC" hybrid. The contents of the disc were folders full of audio files. Again, the G3 iBook refused to read the disc while the UJ-846 took about twice as long as the DVR-109 to mount and open the disc.
Finally, I burned (using the DVR-109) a Verbatim DVD-R "white-top" printable (8X, pn94654, hub printable, no stacking ring) using the Tiger image file as the source. The resulting DVD was not only was readable in the old G3 iBook but booted it, as well.
I should note that these discs, when burned with my G5's internal burner (DVR-117 which, I believe, is the DVR-110 but with Apple firmware) would work fine for data (and boot discs) but never produced a video DVD that would play in my set-top box.
Now, just to be a bit more thorough, I dug up some DVD+R's that I've burned over the past few years. Sonuvagun! Not one of them can be read by the G3 iBook's optical drive. So it's apparent that the old drive just doesn't like +R of any brand (Ridata, HP, JVC).
Okay, so what have we (I) learned from all this (if anything)?
It is tempting to say that the results with the old G3 iBook might be ignored because it is, after all, one of the first (500MHz) units produced and everything is much more compatible these days. However, shouldn't a burned DVD (of either the + or - persuasion) be seen as simply a DVD by the Mac once it's been burned? My Intel iMac shows a "+R" or "-R" as part of the disc's icon yet these are =burned= discs. Perhaps I do not remembers when this behavior had changed but I recall that the "+" or "-" ID was only on discs that had yet to be burned; subsequent to burning, this ID was dropped. (or so I recall...)
Could it be that the "+R" compatibility claims are overstated? But what of the "+RW" disc that gave the "can't calibrate..." error? Should I chalk it up simply to media incompatibility? I have some "+RW" media (HP brand, identified by Toast as "PHILIPS.041."); testing that media results in a successful erase and burn/verify using the UJ-846; no "calibrate..." error as experienced with the Memorex +RW's. Toast sees the disc as a 4X and offers to burn it at that speed but it is really burning at 2X based upon the slow speed of the countdown in Toast's window.
I remember reading something about "book-type" when I used to burn with a PC; perhaps that's an issue? Or maybe that's just a red herring.
In any case, I'll have to do some more testing with a few more older Macs to see if they can read the older DVD+R & +RW I already have and any new ones I burn with the U-846 and DVR_109 using Intel OSX in my iMac.
Comments and suggestions always welcome.
Intel iMac 20" / MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.6) Where the h* did all these firewire drives come from?

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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
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Now my superdrive won't burn any DVDs. Can someone help please?

Hi.
I mentioned earlier in the 'won't burn dvd' topic that my Superdrive wouldn't burn DVD-Rs, saying there was a fault in the burning and the multiplexing.
Now it's spitting out my DVD+Rs as well. As a film student at a college that likes DVD submissions, this is terribly inconvenient. The computer gets as far as encoding everything, then spits out the disc as the burning begins.
I have tried completely re-loading my system, but still have a problem. Is anyone else having this problem and can they help me. Time is of the essence!
Many thanks.
PS. Check my post on 'won't burn dvds' for more info!

Ok. As an addendum, I reset the PRAM and PMU. I also repaired disk permissions. I can burn DVD+R again at 2.4x speed. When burning, DVD-R, however, it spits out the disk and states (when I try to burn on its stated maximum speed of 2x): 'Unable to burn to "disk3" - The device failed to calibrate the laser power for this media..'
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You're welcome Catherine!
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Why does iTunes sometimes refuse to burn a 78:30 playlist?!?

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But once in a while, iTunes decides a playlist is too long even when it's not, like when it is really 78:30. This happens erratically. But when it does continue to give me this message, no amount of chopping time off each track seems to matter. (I use Peak to edit out "dead air" at the end. Doing this to 20 tracks can cut over a minute from the total time of a playlist.) It will only burn to one CD if I remove a whole track.
I just tested one case where it burned 75:50 but not the last track, which was another 2:43. I rebuilt the playlist one track at a time with a new name, but no cigar. I really want this particular 78:30 playlist on one CD. Can anyone help with this?

I would like at once to thank you for making this point again and also to say that it is just not relevant to the problem I'm having. However much space TAO takes up, at the end of the day it's accountable in the total time on the CD. I am not having a problem with iTunes failing to accept a playlist near the limit of time. When the playlist plus TAO space plus anything else adds up to under 80 minutes, iTunes will burn it.
My problem comes when I begin with a playlist of specific tracks that total a few seconds more than 80 minutes. Not incidentally, this is the result of iTunes adding from two to five seconds to each track as it imports the track using Apple Lossless Compression. As a result, a playlist that was actually shorter than 80 minutes becomes longer than 80 minutes.
Then, WITHOUT CHANGING THE TITLES, I remove 60 seconds from the total playlist time BY EDITING THOSE TITLES to make them shorter. For example, "Only the Lonely.mp4" is changed from 2:28.93 to 2:23.87.
I do this by using Peak to remove "dead air" from the end of the track. I then save the new file and substitute it for the old one in the iTunes library. I look before and after at the iTunes file info to confirm I have actually shortened the track by 5.06 seconds as far as iTunes is concerned. In my playlist the time now reads 2:23 instead of 2:28. I do this to other tracks, 10 or more times, to reduce the actual running time of the playlist by a full minute or more. The playlist is now UNDER 79 MINUTES.
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Superdrive refuses to burn anything

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