Will not recognize either of my apple installed optical drives in 10.4.11

Question

G5 2 x 2.66 . what is up with this. i can't burn any discs. any ideas??? both drives spins LOUD. then nothing shows up on the desktop. help!!!

Answer 1

Hi MrConsistent,
Try a different media... try Fuji/Maxell or Sony. My PBookG4 laptop did the same thing after the 10.4.11 update and low and behold it was the media.
Doesn't hurt to run Disk Utility from your system restore disk and verify there are no errors on the drive. Here's how: *Testing and repairing a disk or volume*
When you have problems with a disk or volume, use Disk Utility to test and repair it. Disk Utility also reports the S.M.A.R.T. status, which tells you whether your disk has hardware problems that will cause it to fail.
You can verify your startup disk with Disk Utility, but to repair it, you must start up your computer using another disk. For example, you can use your Mac OS X Install disk.
Close the files and quit the applications on the disk that you want to repair.
Open Disk Utility, and select the disk in the list on the left.
Click First Aid.
Check the S.M.A.R.T. Status at the bottom of the window. If you can't see the S.M.A.R.T. Status, be sure you selected the hard disk your volume is on, and not the volume itself.
If the S.M.A.R.T. Status is "About to Fail," back up your files on the disk as soon as possible and replace the disk.
If the S.M.A.R.T. Status is "Verified" or "Not supported," click Repair Disk to repair the disk.
If Disk Utility cannot unmount the disk, be sure you have quit any open applications and click Repair Disk again. If it still cannot unmount the disk, repair it just like you would repair a startup disk, by starting your computer from another disk, such as your Mac OS X Install disk.
If Disk Utility tells you to look for links to corrupt files in the DamagedFiles directory, some of those files are overlapping on your hard disk and are likely to be corrupt. Examine the affected files, each of which is listed in Disk Utility's output on a line that begins "Overlapped extent allocation". Most of these files have aliases in the DamagedFiles folder at the top level of the affected disk. If you can replace the file or recreate it, delete it. If it contains necessary information, open it and examine its data to make sure it has not been corrupted.
If Disk Utility cannot repair your disk or reports "The underlying task reported failure," try to repair the disk again. If that doesn't work, back up as much of your data as possible, reformat your disk, reinstall Mac OS X, and restore your backed up data. If you continue to have problems with your disk, it may be physically damaged and need to be replaced. See an authorized Apple dealer for more information.
Also, while you have DU open... click, Repair Disk Permissions... always a good thing to try.
Carolyn