Q: Imac will not accept DVD's or CD's

I was the original poster- I found that handing it over to apple sorted it out. SInce it was within one year, they replaced with no qualms. Now the drive works perfectly.

To be honest, there's very little you can do to try and fix it yourself- best to give it to the apple guys

My wife's 18 month old iMac 2gHz Core Duo just started acting up this evening. After multiple attempts, the drive will finally accept a DVD, but I get inconsistent results reading the disc. I'll go through the other thread referenced above and see if there are any solutions there, but I wanted to throw in my $0.02 worth.

Fixed!!! I read that cleaning the optical drive worked for some people so I tried it. At first there was no change and it would not read what was on the cleaning disk. Then, to make matters worse the cleaning disk got stuck in the drive. The brushes threw it out of alignment enough that it would not come out. I freaked and tried to take the computer apart but I didn't have the small torx wrench. Good thing as I finally got it out with a credit card. The disk ended up doing between ten and twenty full cleaning cycles before I got it out though and the brushes were very dirty. When I finally put a new disk in it worked fine. So my suggestion would be to clean the c**p out of it and see what happens. I sold my machine for $500 and used it to buy a Black Friday iMac for $150 off. The new drive works fine...

Add me to the list.

The drive on my iMac was replaced under the warranty because it would not burn DVD - all other operations worked fine. The new drive have worked until recently. Now it does not accept (audio) CDs - only some after trying several times - but DVDs are not a problem (knock on wood).

None of the solutions in this thread have worked for me.

My MacBook with same drive have no problem with CDs or DVDs.

My iMac is early 2008 and runs Leopard and the MacBook is mid 2007 running Tiger. The drive in both machines are Matshita DVD-R UJ-875

Add me to the list.
I just got iLife 09 for Christmas and my 2008 Intel- iMac (with the suspect Mashshita UJ-875 "Super" Drive) just spits out the install disc.

The problem started with audio CDs, then moved into movie DVDs, and now has continued with a bonafide Apple install DVD.

Even though it appears Apple is not reading these threads, (otherwise they might offer a rebate/recall or some type of incentive) it appears that some of these iMacs with the so-called Super Drives are turning Apple iMacs into Super Duds.

Sign me,
Not happy.

Add two more to the list. I say two because I have 2 iMacs that won't read optical discs. The first is a 2006 iMac PowerPC and the second is a BRAND NEW 21.5" iMac. I plan to return the second but I'm screwed with the first one. In both cases, I insert a disc, hear the drive TRYING to read it, and then, roughly 20 seconds later, have the disc spit out of the drive.

I thought my days of spending countless hours navigating through crappy hardware were over when I shifted from PC to Mac. The optical drive issues plus the horrible choice to make iMacs glossy-only are really making me consider a shift back to PC.

RaganFox wrote:
In both cases, I insert a disc, hear the drive TRYING to read it, and then, roughly 20 seconds later, have the disc spit out of the drive.

That's about the same symptoms I've been getting. Rather than spend the mega bucks I've been hearing that Apple charges to replace the internal drive, I opted for purchasing a USB 2.0 CD/DVD burner and I'm back in business.

I have the problem with CD's not being able to be burnt or read. Very occasionally it will read an audio CD, but with a lot of difficulty. DVD reads/writes fine. I downloaded an Apple service manual for my 24" iMac. I looked the problem up in the troubleshooting section, and it tells me that I need to replace my optical drive. Mine's about 18 months old, and out of warranty. I'll finally get round to giving Apple a call, but I bet I know what their response will be.

Well, I called the Apple Store at the Trafford Centre, Manchester, and spoke to a polite young gentleman called Nigel. I'm taking my iMac in on Sunday at 12:00 for them to have a look at it. I'll let you know the outcome after my visit to the Apple Store.

Message was edited by: Wynne G Oldman

Message was edited by: Wynne G Oldman

I took my iMac to the Apple Store today. The staff were very polite and helpful. Thay quoted me £129.25 to replace the optical drive. I decided to go for it. The breakdown of the repair bill is as follows: Superdrive £70, Hardware repair level 1 (labour charge) £40, VAT £19.25. They wouldn't budge on the price, as it's well out of warranty, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Still cheaper than Apple Care, as long as nothing else goes wrong. While I was in the store, I tried the Magic Mouse. Absloutely fantastic. I'm definitely having one of those. Much better than the Mighty Mouse, which I've never been that impressed with.

Put me on the list too. 2.4 GHz intel 20 inch. started acting strange when i was burning discs, it would make lots of noise and the whole machine would vibrate. didn't happen all the time. now whatever kind of disc i put in it will make a few pathetic noises and spit the disc back out. and just last spring i had the hard drive replaced because it melted down. Had lots of macs in my life but the imac is the worst quality by far! Not what i expect from Apple.

I have the same problem, it is intermittent. It's worse with CDs then DVDs. I can put a CD in 50 times and it won't accept it. A restart changes nothing. Once I can get a CD to stay in and load, it makes very strange sounds when it spins down, sounds as if it's rubbing against something. My one year warranty is not up yet and I will be bringing this into my local Apple Service Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. Wish me luck. I hope that it behaves this way once it's at the service center and doesn't decide to perform flawlessly.

Finally a visit to Buchanan St in Glasgow sorted the problem - it was software related. With a fresh install the drive worked fine. I returned home and loaded the new install onto a seperate drive then restored my files from Time machne. The problem came straight back. So I have created two users on the imac, steadily transferring everything that I need onto the new user account. Problem solved.

Well I suppose I'm yet another victim of the failing supper drive....

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:
Firmware Revision: DB09
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Mine started acting funny a few months ago, I was not very concerned at the time, most of what I work with are DVD and, not all that much with CD's however, mine will no longer take a CD at all
without a huge fight, I tried the Phillips Laser Lens Cleaner with no luck. I must have ran the cleaner
disc 100 times. I did get my drive to accept two audio CD's in two days.

I bought my 24" Imac just over two years ago, at the time I paid no thought really to the Apple Care Plan, my thought at the time was I'm buying a premium product and, its a MAc and they just work...

For now, my thought is just picking up an external.
http://www.lacie.com/fi/products/product.htm?pid=11171
Then when I get brave enough disassemble my mac an install a new drive.

Can anybody offer up a link of good detailed information on the disassembly of my IMac ??
I'm really hoping Apple steps up to the plate on this one, it would not bother me so much if this was more of an isolated situation however, when I see this same problem plastered all over the web
and, it has and is effecting the masses, Apple should put out some form of a recall to address the problem rather than allowing their faithful customers to absorb the cost....

I have ben in retail for years and, I see recalls happen all the time over defective product...

James

ikell wrote:
Finally a visit to Buchanan St in Glasgow sorted the problem - it was software related. With a fresh install the drive worked fine. I returned home and loaded the new install onto a seperate drive then restored my files from Time machne. The problem came straight back. So I have created two users on the imac, steadily transferring everything that I need onto the new user account. Problem solved.

Wish it was that easy for me. We have four users on our iMac and it doesn't matter what user tries to use the optical drive-- it will kick out a music CD just as fast as the other user.

It was an incremental failure. It started off with a few CDs, then several, then almost every CD (ironically I copied a commercial music CD that would not work and the copy worked fine!). Now it has evolved into DVDs and every so often, while watching a movie DVD, I will get a message that it is skipping over a damaged area and either pauses, skips or even stops altogether. I can take the same DVD into work and it plays fine on my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro.