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

My iMac was part of the Hard Drive recall, so when I took it in they replaced it for parts cost only (just south of $120).  It's a bit of a premium to get the part from the Apple Store, but it's about $80 elsewhere - I didn't have to pay for labor - and I didn't have to do it myself.

The new Superdrive is from a different manufacturer, so maybe it'll actually be "super" this time .

Apple also threw me a complimentary upgrade to Mountain Lion on this computer (thanks guys! )

No issues so far and there's a 90 day warranty on the repair.

That's great...so where does one get details of this "hard drive recall" to see if I qualify?

You should have received an e-mail from Apple, but here's a link to the page where you can enter your Serial Number to see if your machine is part of the program.

http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

It only covers certain 1TB Seagate Hard Drives which have had a very high failure rate.  It runs through April.

Quite honestly, they should do a similar program for the SuperDrives as well - but at least the cost of the replacement was relatively reasonable in my case.

I've had an Apple computer for over 10 years and all their cd/dvd drives have been garbage.

I bought a  new Imac about 6 months ago and already the cd drive has taken a dump.

Totally annoying that I have to buy an external drive to get something reliable.

I have a home business and taken the computer in for a few days will be a big hassle since that means downtime for me.   I may just go back to an external drive. 

My last Apple comp  G5- worked great except for the cd drive, that lasted about  4 months too.

Get with it and stop using poor quality parts on your computers.

I had the same issues-

some cds worked, some didn't and I'm not standing the Mac sideways to get things to work- to me thats ridiculous .  I went out and bought and LG dvd burner (burns up to 24X, much faster than the Imac anyways)

and it works fine. It reads the Super Audio cds- something the Imac had problems with. It also reads the dvds- another thing the imac struggled with.  Over all, and this is based on over 10 yrs of Macs, the cd/dvd burners have always been crap at their best.  Seems they use the cheapest most unreliable piece they can stick in there.  A shame too since thats something most people will use

It's time to add me to the 25 pages of defective SuperDrives...24-inch Early 2009 iMac.  Still reads audio CD's most of the time, but almost every DVD gets stuck and I have to reboot with the mouse button down to get it out.  If the DVD doesn't get stuck, it pops back out after 60-sec.  I'm having to get by with an external.  Disappointing...

Same here. 27" iMac (late 2009) with Optiarc DVD RW AD- 5680H does not accept commercial DVDs anymore. It did before, there're plenty of DVDs I imported to iTunes. For some months now these same DVDs are not accepted anymore.

You can add me on two counts. The DVD drive is no longer working on my 2010 iMac, and the DVD drive on my MacbookPro isn't working either.

I know there are LOTS of Apple fanboys on these forums, but after four years of using Macs I am seriously tempted to return to good old Windows. I bought my wife a beautiful Samsung Ultrabook, and I loved it so much I stole it off her. I've been using it for the last nine months and have found it to be incredibly fast, stable, and it just works. Unlike all my Apple kit.

I'll give it to Apple that they make stylish kit (so do Samsung, Acer and Asus), but as far as reliability of DVD drives and batteries (the one in my MBP melted!!!) they're not the best.

If Apple still appreciated their customer base (I think they appreciate the $100 billion dollar bank balance more) they'd replace all these crappy DVD drives free of charge. There are now 25 pages of unhappy posters in this one thread. Surely, that sends a message.

Still looking but does anyone have an answer to the "unable to even insert a disc into the drive"?

Add my 2011 iMac to the failed hardware list.

Have you repaired permissions?  Have you reset the PRAM?   Have you used a CD cleaner?  Have you re-installed the OS?  Those are probably the first things to do.

Hopefully your discs are not scratched.

Are you having a problem with DVDs, CDs or both?

Is your system covered by AppleCare?  If so, call Apple and you'll most likely have to bring it in for repair if you've done everything else.

I have done various things, but I don't think I've reset the PRAM. I will look into doing that.

The DVDs I'm putting in are brand new. I've only just taken the sellophane off them, but the problem has persisted for months with new and old ones alike.

I wouldn't mind, but I hardly ever use the DVD drive these days, which makes it all the more frustrating that when you come to use it, it doesn't work. It is most definitely a design flaw as you shouldn't need to have to jump through all these hoops just to use a basic feature of the machine.

Hello all.

Tim, Jonny and the rest of the crowd on the interweb,

I have an Imac 27", a MacBookPro 13" latest edition (about a year old)  and a MacBook Pro 15" from a couple of years ago (call it 4). I've been faithful but all of these have a DVD CD drive that doesn't work. ALL of them!

I am sick of it. It's clear that it's a ploy. I have an old Dell, yes an effin' DELL laptop that I put Ubuntu 11.10 on which I now use to rip and watch DVDs on.

SO my wife's MBP, my old MBP, the family iMac can no longer read DVDs. I have to use an old Tosh DVD VHS player with EyeTV to watch DVDs in my sitting room

The moral of the story:

DON'T buy a Mac if you want to watch DVDs.

Oh I forgot, I paid Apple Inc for a new DVD drive in  my wife's old Macbook that she broke )by treading on it a month after the new drive got fitted). That makes 4 out of 4 that don't work! I have other machines that have worked for a more than a decade. CD players, even cassette players...

My old PPC G4 works ok (OK Flash 11 is proving to be a problem but you see my point)

My Macbook Air can't read them either but there ain't no hole for 'em...

So my only computer that can read DVDs is an old G4 PPC iMac and a DELL.

C'mon Apple, buy some decent parts or just be honest and say we don't give a **** because we want you to spend money on iTunes.

You are pushing my patience let me tell ya.

An ex Apple client

Gloucestershire, (near Somerset, Jonny)

UK.

That's it, the old country.

I'm thinking of jumping ship.Please react and tell us your plans. Or do you want more of us to go back to those old enemies who actually appear to give a fying f***?

Samsung. Good drives, good screens. Would they be so cavalier? Arrogance is a poor salesman.

And yes, I clean, blow air, use the keyboard and insert legal, new, clean discs. It's just that hte hardware doesn't work A shocking piece of scandalous rubbish x 4.

HP DVDs work for years. Even horrible DELLs.

C'mon Apple, let me know that you will support me. Replace these crappy drives. For free.

Thanks

Talk soon

I guess this is ne good thing about Apple dropping DVD from most of it's computers now, you can choose any number of other brands DVD and BluRay and if they fail it's quick and easy to unplug and swap it for another without the expensive job of ripping the iMac apart.

Personally I'm going to try the shared DVD function from my G5 tower at first and look at getting BluRay later for my 27"... whne it gets here. 8 weeks and still nothing, but that's another story.

Apple Im sure is well aware of this growing epidemic.  Its obvious, technology is phasing out dvd's, itunes now sells movies, hence instead of ripping your dvd collection to hard drive, and convert it to play on apple tv, they restrict playing dvd's , blame it on an optical issue, bs  and what are resorting to?? buy the digital copy on itunes.   They win again !! ugh

I have had exactly the same issue - blasted a can of compressed air up and down the CD/DVD slot - it worked first time!