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

Close

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

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 23 of 32 last Next
  • by ckaiserjr61,

    ckaiserjr61 ckaiserjr61 Nov 6, 2012 6:35 AM in response to SWO2Cryppie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 6, 2012 6:35 AM in response to SWO2Cryppie

    I tried that method first, and unfortunately I had no luck trying that, (believe me, if that had worked for me, I'd rather have done that, as it's much less labor intensive ;-) but I say, do whatever works for you, especially if it saves you from spending any aditional money, (on Apple products/services especially!) and allows you to use the drive you paid for when you bought your overpriced iMac!

  • by Geordie,

    Geordie Geordie Nov 6, 2012 6:59 AM in response to ckaiserjr61
    Level 2 (310 points)
    Nov 6, 2012 6:59 AM in response to ckaiserjr61

    Thanks ckaiserjr61 – I may try that. What a load of dross all this is though. My CD/DVD drive has never loaded discs very comfortably really. Plus I have a really yellow-streaked screen with dark patches in various places. I need to take a long think before I get another machine...

  • by detsekson,

    detsekson detsekson Nov 6, 2012 3:56 PM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 6, 2012 3:56 PM in response to pjensen4

    Add me to the list of discardable Apple customers: Late 2009 iMac 27" and unable to read any discs in any position, vertical, flat or otherwise. I already had the hard drive fail after 18 months of little use, and, of course there was no warranty. I really don't look forward to carrying around my 27" iMac again (this is why they make laptops). Apple should step up and take care their customers who make them so successful.

  • by ICSS,

    ICSS ICSS Nov 9, 2012 3:01 AM in response to ckaiserjr61
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2012 3:01 AM in response to ckaiserjr61

    Same problem with my Apple Mac, unable to read any CD/DVD  disc inserted.

     

    My 2011 Apple Mac is just out of 12 month warranty and Apple (Australia) refuse to accept there is a defect and problem with my CD unit, despite me advising them of all the same and earlier on-line posts.  I have many Apple products and this is the first problem and after-sales service experience I have encountered.

     

    So much to say, if Apple do not concede they have a problem with the CD unit (maybe a product quality issue?) and are willing to be proactive and fix this problem for existing customers, it leave question marks over their iMac product quality and lifespan (after 12 months) and of course after sales customer experience.

  • by Geordie,

    Geordie Geordie Nov 9, 2012 6:32 AM in response to ICSS
    Level 2 (310 points)
    Nov 9, 2012 6:32 AM in response to ICSS

    Ridiculous, I'll bet they're glad to be dropping CD/DVDs from the new iMacs...

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 10, 2012 8:55 AM in response to pjensen4
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 8:55 AM in response to pjensen4

    I have successfully used Disk Warrior to rebuild the system as sometimes the problem is a corrupted file.  If that doesn't work, then It might need a reinstall of the OS.

     

    also, a friend of mine had a problem and it turned out to be a combination of environmental problems stemming from the fact that he had a house full of animals (cats and dogs) and that he smoked.  That's a sure way to clog up the read/write head.

     

    I always suggest keeping the environment as dust and particle free as much as possible and maybe investing in a really good quality air purification system.  the better air purifiers are the ony way to go.  For those, I like Blue Air, Alen, and many others.  But don't buy those really cheap ones, they get clogged faster.  I use a BlueAir 200 series and it is fairly quiet and it does a great job in cleaning up the air.

     

    now, if you have a good air quality, then it might be a disk corruption issue. always have an external drive with a know good OS with Disk Warrior can many times fix the issue.  Otherwise, it might just be a re-install of the OS.  Try that before you replace the drive as it may not need to be replaced.

     

    Also, invest in a good surge protector and/or a good battery backup if you have power problems since they can cause file corruption.  A good surge protecter is either a upper end model from Tripp Lite, Furman, Panamax, but don't get the cheap ones, they don't work we'll against spikes. 

     

    i hope this helps.

  • by James Ball1,

    James Ball1 James Ball1 Nov 10, 2012 11:42 AM in response to David Blank2
    Level 3 (715 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 11:42 AM in response to David Blank2

    I think I can speak for most who have posted in this thread that if it was truly that simple, there would not be 300+ posts here. I posted earlier. Tried everything. The tilting on the side did work. I took it to the Genius bar and they had me reinstall OS and said I had too much on my 1 TB internal drive. I "only" had 280 G available. I reinstalled and tried every other suggestion and still could not mount commercial CDs. I finally had the internal drive replaced by a local computer repair place and it's worked fine since, for the past four months or so. They did a much better job than Apple or their Genius Bar did and acknowledged that it was a hardware failure--as should Apple.

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 10, 2012 12:39 PM in response to James Ball1
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 12:39 PM in response to James Ball1

    From my experience of using Macs since the 80's and have some technical experience, I usually try the Disk Warrior route first.  if that doesn't work, then I do a re-install of the OS and see if that works, but if it turns out to be the drive, then it turns out to be the drive.  How much storage on your internal hard drive doesn't affect whether your Optical drive will accept a disk or not.


    Optical drives not working can be a variety of reasons.  Corrupted file that is required to access it, which can either be repaired using something ilke Disk Warrior, or reinstalling the OS. Another reason is the heads might be optical portion of the drive needs to be cleaned because the environment it is used has lots of pollutants like dog/cat hair, smoke, etc. and the environment needs to be addressed to it doesn't crop up again. I haven't tried any optical drive cleaning products, so I can't say good/bad about those.  A friend of mine had an iMac and he had dogs/cats with TONS of hair shedding, he smoked right next to his computer and I always tried to get him to change, but it resulted in the optical drive not working and the insides of his iMac was filthy.

     

    Now, you may have just had some bad experiences with some Apple Tech people.  It does happen since people are human, but don't you get to complain through their questionaire about the service you had?

     

    Was your product under AppleCare warranty?  I usually recommend that since it takes the worry away. For me, I have had ZERO complaints about Apple's support and their abilities to fix a hardware issue.  Software related issues, I can do myself in most cases, or I have a variety of resources to contact.

     

    Now, Apple doesn't make these DVD drives and I think they see the trend is that they are not used as much as they did, etc., etc which is why they are in the process of removing them and just leaving it up the user to have an external optical drive that can always be used on practically any system with a simple USB connection.


    The only thing I can do is to assist in whatever ways I can before I would suggest a hardware replacement and only do that as a last resort.  Unfortunately, Disk Warrior is not a utliity that is always used.  Since I don't work at Apple, I can't say what they are SUPPOSED to use or NOT SUPPOSED to use with regards to optical and hard drive issues. I know some might use Drive Genius or some other tool to identify and fix the issue, whether it be hardware or software.

     

    Yeah, If I had come in after you already went to Apple/Genius bar and their suggestions didn't work, then yeah, it still could be a hardware issue, but just replacing the hardware first doesn't always fix a software problem and many times it's a software issue (corrupted files is TYPICALLY a problem and quite easily is hard to detect).

     

    Now, moving forward. I still recommend having an external known working drive with Disk Warrior and doing what can be done to eliminate optical drive problems as much as you can.  Corrupted files can be caused by improper shut downs, spikes/surges can hit the hard drive and cause file corruption as well.  With optical drives, the enivironment such as smoke, animal hair, carpet fibers and the best way to eliminate that is with good air purification.


    I get a little anal about this stuff, because I'm used to working with companies and businesses that have data centers and they have basically clean rooms, battery backup, line conditioning, etc., etc. with their server rooms and they have less problems than us typical home users with dogs and cats laying around.

     

    Either way, I'm glad you got your system up and running. 

     

    I can tell you that ALL or MOST optical drives are made REAL CHEAP due to the competition and the market and they just don't make really good quality optical drives that are inexpensive.  I wish they did, but they don't.

     

    Just keep this other information handy for future reference since you might experience a problem with the optical drive and it isn't the actual hardware.  FYI.

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 10, 2012 12:58 PM in response to James Ball1
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 12:58 PM in response to James Ball1

    Another food for thought, JUST IN CASE, it happens.  I've experienced the drive not being bootable and SOME people replace the drive in a Mac when many times it can be fixed without too much trouble. There are these books you can get on OS X (always get the latest book for the specific version of OS) that go through the tips and tricks.  You might be kind of amazed as to how to fix things without always having to replace what appears to be a damaged piece of hardware.

     

    Optical drives, I guess keeping as clean of an environment (animal hair, carpet fibers, smoke, etc.) is a really good air filtration system, and there might be a decent optical drive cleaning product to use.  Again, I haven't used any, but that might be worth checking into to keep the optical lens clean because they do get dirty after a while, which can affect their operation.

     

    Also, having good utility programs, if you want to get invovled with learning how they work, Drive Genius is a good utility, Disk Warrior is another good disk utility and there are others out there, but those are typically the better ones that I have found.

     

    Always have good line conditioning/surge protection, battery backup even better to prevent surges and blackouts from doing harm to your power supply, motherboard, drives, etc.

     

    Good file maintanence, and keeping up to date with the latest versions of software and OS is always a good idea.

     

    Hopefully, you will have as close to trouble free computing.

  • by Chanlandia,

    Chanlandia Chanlandia Nov 10, 2012 3:41 PM in response to David Blank2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 3:41 PM in response to David Blank2

    Thank you, David, for going the extra mile to provide us with your hands-on experience and expertise.  It is much appreciated.

     

    My iMac was under the Applecare warranty, and they replaced my internal drive.  After the Applecare expired, the problem recurred - rejection of professionally burned, commercial CDs. Then a disc got stuck in the drive and I finally got it out after weeks of trying. 

     

    I just upgraded systems from Leopard to Snow Leopard, so we will see if your guess that our problem might be a system error pans out.  I will keep this group posted on that.  No disc problems so far.

     

    Possibly helpful hint on a related subject: Those of us running Leopard are having problems because some programs are no longer compatible or are causing problems for OS X Leopard and earlier. Google Chrome no longer is providing updates to Leopard runners. In order to upgrade to Mtn Lion to work the programs, a user needs to have Snow Leopard or more recent OS X.  Be advised that Apple no longer, technically, sells Snow Leopard, they will let you have a SL disc for $20 if it is for the purposes of correcting problems that are solved by upgrading.  I found out the hard way that certain versions of programs will not work with Mtn Lion (such as 2004 Word for Mac). I dropped back from Mtn Lion to Snow Leopard to save my programs.  I think Snow Leopard will be "good" for a while.  I will keep this group posted if my change to Snow Leopard fixes our disc problems. I am saying this so the reviewer of our posts won't erase this post.  It is pertinent to the discussion for people with 2008/2009 iMacs.  

     

    Thanks, David.

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 10, 2012 6:53 PM in response to Chanlandia
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 6:53 PM in response to Chanlandia

    My system is a first generation Intel IMac.  I was running Leopard and I decided to upgrade to Snow Leopard.  I did the upgrade, but ran into some problems with DVD shortly thereafter as I was trying to get my drive back in working condition due to several years of not using the system and lots of out dated apps, running out of space, you name it.  After I did the first install of Snow Leopard, that's when I couldn't use the DVD drive and I figured since I've used the system for many, MANY years, I've successfully ripped a large collection of CDs into digital versions.  I thought maybe the DVD drive needed to be replaced, but after doing some research, I just simply used Disk Warrior and BLAMO, that worked.  I read that others had similar experience and have used Disk Warrior before, so by all means, for many of us, Disk Warrior can be a lifesaver.

  • by Chanlandia,

    Chanlandia Chanlandia Nov 10, 2012 10:07 PM in response to David Blank2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 10, 2012 10:07 PM in response to David Blank2

    My next move is to get Disk Warrior.  I'll report back.  Thanks.

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 11, 2012 2:08 PM in response to Chanlandia
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 11, 2012 2:08 PM in response to Chanlandia

    Also, make sure you have a KNOWN BOOTABLE, CURRENT OS external hard drive that you can always use as a boot up disk to help trouble shoot and have the latest version of Disk Warrior on it.

     

    IT also depends on how much  of an Apple Geek you want to be.  I always recommend getting one of those Missing Manual books on the version OS you have as they can sometimes give some tips and tricks on how to fix stuff when someone isn't available to assist.

     

    I've had good luck with DIsk Warrior.  It's been one of those indispensible MUST HAVE utitlies. I remember when everyone knew about it that was a Mac user, but since the proliferation of Apple products over the years, it hasn't been as widely known as it used to be.  I guess Alsoft has their niche sales and they never were big on promotion.  I wish there were more experienced Mac heads out there with a list of the indispensible utility software and instructions for Best Practices approach to fixing problems.

     

    Drive Genius 3 is another product that I found out about from some of the Apple Genius guys. Some of them really know their respective stuff, some not as much depending on how long they've been in the industry, if they use techniques outside the normal Apple training.  But the local Apple Store guys seem to use it on hard drive issues.,  With these new SSD drives, I don't know if using Drive Genius even works or is even needed, but with the Fusion Drives, the same thing. So, that I advise with a little caution.  I haven't had a SSD equipped OS X desktop/laptop, so I am not prepared to discuss that, but from what i hear, there really isn't any utility to use with SSD drives, but then again, I've not done much research in that area yet.

     

    Either way,  if you have the chance, get a Apple Genius and ask them if they know and use DIsk Warrior.  If they do, chances are they are old school Mac head and get to know them, ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS and how you can prevent problems, fix problems on your own.  Obviously, I am also a FIRM believer in buying AppleCare for computers, etc.  Obviously, we can't always afford it, but if you can't, I understand, but if you can I always recommend doing it because they can save money in the long run.  Also, if you feel the desire, slip them a $20 tip if they give you a wealth of information that works.  That will ALWAYS put a smile on their face. Many of them work very hard at what they do and some feel underappreciated.

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 11, 2012 8:01 PM in response to Chanlandia
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 11, 2012 8:01 PM in response to Chanlandia

    There are plenty of various things that may or may not work.  Have you repaired the permissions and then reset the PRAM?   that SOMETIMES fixes the problem.  Also, the lens of the DVD drive may need to be cleaned. They do get dirty and the disc will just eject if the laser can't read it.  I don't know which one of these Laser Lens Kits works the best, but there are plenty of choices out there, and they are cheap and probably a good idea to do periodically.  Especially if you live in an area fairly close to lots of freeway traffic, dirt roads, animals, thick carpet, smoke, and just basically ANY environment that isn't a clean room or with high grade air filtration systems. Basically, EVERYWHERE.

     

    I don't know how old your particular computer is, but batteries also go bad and it might be a good idea to check or replace the battery.  They TYPICALLY last many years, but the internal battery the keeps the clock going do go bad.

     

    You can look up Matsushita UJ-846, which is one of the most common DVD drive and these things have had problems on PCs as well.

  • by David Blank2,

    David Blank2 David Blank2 Nov 12, 2012 5:58 PM in response to Chanlandia
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 12, 2012 5:58 PM in response to Chanlandia

    Here is something that I vaguely remember from a conversation many, many years ago.

     

    please take this with a grain of salt and I'm still doing some research on it and I am going on PURE memory, but maybe someone might have more knowledge to share on the subject.

     

    These multi players where they read and write to multiple formats have different lasers in them, from what i recall. I don't know if this has changed over the years, but I did have a discussion with a audiphile person on this because a long time ago I bought an expensive Sony DVD player for my home theater system.  This was way back when DVDs first came out and the model i had bought was $1,000.  Which may sound like a lot of money, but there are brands far more expensive than that.

     

    Anyway, what happened was the DVD player was unable to read DVDs, but it still played CDs, or it might have been the other way around.  Again, this was a LONG time ago (over 12 years).

     

    Now, what my audiophile friend told me was that when we play a music CD, the DVD laser is also being used, even though it wasn't reading any media (or visa versa) and one of the lasers, back in those days didn't last as long as the other.  So, when the player can't play one form, it can still play the other.  Basically an issue at the time. Now, this technology has advanced and changed over the years and I am just wondering if you or others are experiencing that the drives can read some disks, but not all.

     

    As luck would have it, I just got a CD cleaner disk and it runs fine and plays some music/voice  while the disk spins and brushes clean up the lens.  There are plenty of brands out there ranging from less than $10 to around $20. I bought mine at Best Buy and they say to have the lens cleaned about every 40 hours.  Well, I can probably guarantee that 99% of the computer using population doesn't do this.

     

    Anyway, I realized that I am finally having an issue with the same problem. I mostly used my optical drive to rip CDs, but rarely used it as a DVD player/writer and I'm wondering now if my drive is suffering from the same problem.

     

    I've done every possible, concievable thing and nothing has worked. I have a call into Alsoft to see what they know since the last time this happened earlier this year, DiskWarrior solved the problem, but I haven't really used the Optical drive much only to install a few programs and not much else.

     

    If anyone knows more or if there is a definite way to tell, I'm all ears.

     

    Cheers.

first Previous Page 23 of 32 last Next