pjensen4

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

When I insert a DVD or CD, after about 10 secs it spits it right back out. If I continue to insert the DVD or CD right after it ejects, the computer will finally accept it on about the 6th time and everything works fine. Is this a drive issue or software? any ideas?

Thanks

Imac, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Aug 2, 2008 12:07 PM

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

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  • by Tedd Welch,

    Tedd Welch Tedd Welch Jan 12, 2011 7:47 PM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 12, 2011 7:47 PM in response to pjensen4
    My girlfriend and I got a refurbished iMac 4 days ago and we're getting the same problem. It worked like magic until yesterday, when the DVD drive started being wonky, and now today it's entirely busted. Guess I'll have to give a call to the mac store, which is a good 45 minutes away. Not very pleased about this problem.
  • by Katzen56,

    Katzen56 Katzen56 Jan 13, 2011 1:27 AM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 13, 2011 1:27 AM in response to pjensen4
    I had posted in another post about this same problem. I can see that this is a major problem with the Apple optical drives regardless of brand or media used. My problem actually stated 2 or 3 version 10.5 updates earlier. Perhaps the optical drives driver was updated or contaminated in the upgrade package early on. Apple must read these posts, so with so many complaints about the same thing, why is Apple not taking action to correct the problem. I have not found an avenue to even report this discrepancy to Apple directly.
  • by geogib,

    geogib geogib Jan 15, 2011 2:02 PM in response to Katzen56
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 2:02 PM in response to Katzen56
    Same problem on my Imac 8,1 3.06 penryn. Help, Apple!!! Audio CDs not recognized, ejected. Tried using a cleaner, no luck.
  • by Prestonstudio,

    Prestonstudio Prestonstudio Jan 21, 2011 12:12 AM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 21, 2011 12:12 AM in response to pjensen4
    Add me to the list as well — I'm as mad as ****! I recently bought the iMac core i7 27, and for the first couple of months I barely used the optical drive. This week I began using it to import some more music from my CD library. Each time I inserted a CD it sounded as though the drive was working too hard (very noisy, et cetera), and a number of times it wouldn't eject a CD — I had to restart in each case to regain the eject function. Then today the drive just stopped working completely. When I try to put any CD in the slot nothing happens. Seems as if the drive is kaput! Looking over this thread I was hoping it might well be a software issue, and I did install the 10.6.6 Combo update (as one poster suggested) but to no avail. I'm one of the Apple Faithful, but my faith is being tested here. I think Apple is using a substandard optical drive and/or not providing enough cooling in the design of these new iMacs!
  • by Pixelbastler,

    Pixelbastler Pixelbastler Jan 26, 2011 2:29 AM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 26, 2011 2:29 AM in response to pjensen4
    My iMac 24'' from September 2006 has same problem, which might have arised due to software update.

    Sometimes I can feed a music CD and drive spins up and reads CD.
    But when ejecting old CD, and inserting next CD, there is no spin up.

    Dirty Workaround till problem will be fixed in software:
    1) shut down computer
    2) plug out power connection for at least half a minute
    3) start computer, and you can read next music CD.

    Seems that the state "CD spinning" is not handled correctly within operating system.
    After CD eject the operating system seems to assume that CD is still inside and spinning, and therefore does not spin up the next CD.

    Some weeks ago I did not have that problem, maybe it was introduced by recent software update ?
    Please give us an software error fix for this.
  • by Pixelbastler,

    Pixelbastler Pixelbastler Feb 3, 2011 9:22 AM in response to Pixelbastler
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 3, 2011 9:22 AM in response to Pixelbastler
    Now I found the real reason - the DVD drive itself was defect, not the software.
    I replaced it by another used DVD drive, and it works now.
  • by mnmat,

    mnmat mnmat Feb 7, 2011 2:41 PM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 7, 2011 2:41 PM in response to pjensen4
    Add me to the list as well. I haven't used the drive until last weekend when I wanted to burn a DVD from my kid's school play. I have owned the iMac for 15 months. It is now out of warranty (of course). The drive doesn't even work after using once. This is BS.
  • by David Doelman,

    David Doelman David Doelman Feb 12, 2011 2:49 PM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 12, 2011 2:49 PM in response to pjensen4
    This is very dissapointing. I've recently bought my iMac 27" i7, with full excitement. Now, as I attempt to install my hp officejet 4500 software, it refuses to accept the disk. I've skimmed this 2.5 year old topic to perhaps find a solution. Alas, it's only filled with a good pile of equally dissapointed people. I'm suprised that Apple hasn't come with a reply. -Not- looking forward to bring my iMac back already, to get its drive fixed. This is not what I expect after spending more than 2k euro.

    Do something Apple, honestly.
  • by John Hickam,

    John Hickam John Hickam Feb 13, 2011 5:28 AM in response to David Doelman
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Feb 13, 2011 5:28 AM in response to David Doelman
    I have just gotten this problem on my iMac 1.83 Ghz I keep trying CD's and DVD's. Keep popping back out. I can't even load system cd's. Completely out of warranty. Am I better out buying AppleCare before I take my iMac into Apple Store? ANy help would be greatly appreciated.
  • by bjohnston81501,

    bjohnston81501 bjohnston81501 Feb 17, 2011 11:16 AM in response to John Hickam
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 17, 2011 11:16 AM in response to John Hickam
    Hello, I'm also having issues with playing audio cds/burning cds. It will spit out Audio CDs and not even attempt to read them. I called Apple and they said that Verbatim disks tend to do well. I'm well outside of my warranty as well. I was able to restore Disk burning (Just for Verbatim disks) by Resetting the PRAM
    Reboot and Hold down Command, option, P, R but it's intermittent and I still cannot load audio cds. DVD's play fine, and no problem writing to DVDs.

    There has been success flashing the drive in earlier Matshita models and resetting the firmware, but they don't have a firmware update as far as I can tell for my drive. Here is some troubleshooting that I came up with to get the burning back.

    1. I went out and bought a Laser Lens Cleaner , put laser lens cleaner and cleaned the drive.

    Audio disks will still not load. Once inserted it will whir for a few seconds and automatically eject the disk.

    2. Upon inserting a Verbatim Disk for the first time, I found that it was the only CD-R that would load.

    3. I tried burning to the disk both through Itunes and finder. Through ITunes it automatically says Burning Disc... finishing, then after about a minute I get an error message that says "The attempt to burn a disc failed. The disc drive didn't respond properly and can't recover or retry."

    4. Tried using other Verbatim disks, that would then start behaving like audio cds and automatically spit out......

    5. I reset the PRAM/ NVRAM

    6. Inserted Verbatim disk which it accepted, tried burning a small screen shot. FIRST SUCCESSFUL BURN TO A CD-R

    7. I ejected the disk and tried to put the same disk back into my IMac and it wouldn't accept it. Again with the problems.

    8. Checked disk on Macbook, and it did in fact burn correctly.

    9. I inserted another Verbatim disk to try and burn an Audio disk through Itunes, SUCCESSFUL Burn of an audio CD through ITunes (Checked on Macbook)

    11. Inserted Burned audio CD back into IMac, still will not accept it now because its an audio cd?

    12. Inserted another Blank Verbatim disk- NOT READING AGAIN..... Several attempts with several different blank Verbatim disks... Still not accepting.

    13. Tried Audio CD again- Still will not accept.

    13. Reboot computer

    14. Still will not accept Verbatim disks,Audio disks

    15. Reboot computer and reset PRAM again.- Will not read audio cds, ABLE TO BURN THROUGH ITUNES

    16. Tried to play music on burned disk on Imac- Did read audio, and music played....

    17. Ejected burned audio disk, and reinserted it into Imac- would not accept disc.....

    18. Inserted Verbatim blank disk- It accepted. Tried to burn data disk SUCCESSFUL

    19. Inserted another Verbatim blank disk- Not accepted..

    20. Tried another Verbatim blank disk- Accepted SUCCESSFUL BURN THROUGH ITUNES, Ejected disk, Reinserted, Not accepted.

    21. Tried another Verbatim disk- Not accepted... Re-inserted, disk accepted. Did not try to burn at this point......

    22. Tried again with store bought audio cd, inserted and re-inserted x 5 times with no success.

    23. Tried to make a new account to see if it was possibly just an issue with my administrator account, did not work.

    Summary: Disk burning seems to have been restored, but is intermittent and improves with reset of PRAM. Still cannot read audio cds....

    I'm having trouble believing that Apple will not admit there is an issue here. Under Apple Discussions there are 69,108 Views and 203 replies for the topic Imac will not accept DVD's or CD's

    Model Name: iMac
    Model Identifier: iMac8,1
    Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
    Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
    Number Of Processors: 1
    Total Number Of Cores: 2
    L2 Cache: 6 MB
    Memory: 2 GB
    Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

    MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875

    Firmware Revision: DB09
  • by bjohnston81501,

    bjohnston81501 bjohnston81501 Feb 21, 2011 1:47 PM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 21, 2011 1:47 PM in response to pjensen4
    I have been working with Apple on this issue, going back and forth with Engineers. They still will not admit that it's a defect, despite the enormous amounts of posts and complaints by similar affected people. They recommended me to retry putting Mac-OS Leopard to see if that was in fact the problem. Since I have a backup laptop, that's exactly what I'm doing right now.
  • by Michael Eiseman,

    Michael Eiseman Michael Eiseman Feb 26, 2011 1:03 AM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 26, 2011 1:03 AM in response to pjensen4
    Add me to the list of everyone else with progressive failure of the optical disc over time.

    Purchased an external LaCie and it seems like I can function normally again but I just tried to view a brand new commercial DVD documentary on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the audio track wouldn't play at all and the video stop on a frame but the time continues to elapse.
  • by RadHaz,

    RadHaz RadHaz Feb 28, 2011 12:33 PM in response to Michael Eiseman
    Level 2 (210 points)
    Feb 28, 2011 12:33 PM in response to Michael Eiseman
    I've rarely used my optical drive in the time I've owned this iMac. It now will not mount any disc, burned or commercial. It spits the disc out after a few seconds. An external Memorex drive works fine.
  • by Cricker24,

    Cricker24 Cricker24 Mar 2, 2011 12:35 PM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 2, 2011 12:35 PM in response to pjensen4
    I'm also having this problem. My iMac doesn't eject the CD, but it does not mount on the desktop and it doesn't appear in iTunes. I just bought a brand new commercial audio CD and when I put it in my iMac, nothing happens. It doesn't eject, mount or anything. The only way I could eject the CD was through Disk Utility. It does this with new and old CDs. My iMac is a little over 3-year-old. I've updated to Snow Leopard 10.6.6. The CD/DVD drive is an OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5630A. I also use VMWare Fusion to run Windows XP and when I try to play the CD through Windows, it finds the disc in My Computer, but it still will not play.

    Please somebody help me!! I'm physically disabled and my computer is extremely important to me. The only way I can play audio CDs and DVDs myself is through my computer and I would be severely disappointed if I can't get this fixed!!
  • by Cricker24,

    Cricker24 Cricker24 Mar 2, 2011 12:50 PM in response to Cricker24
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 2, 2011 12:50 PM in response to Cricker24
    Ok, I don't know if this is coincidence or not, but I ejected the CD through Disk Utility and then I did Repair Permissions for the hard drive and then put the CD back in and it mounted on the desktop and opened in iTunes. I haven't tried another disc yet or rebooted the computer, so I don't know if it's truly fixed. It's worth trying though.
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