Q: Apple external optical drive won't mount or play DVDs or CDs
I have a 27" late 2013 iMac, 3.5 GHz Core i7 with 32 GB RAM and El Capitan installed. The Apple external optical drive will accept DVDs and CDs but will not mount the disk on the desktop nor will it play them. It sounds like it's scanning the disk but then simply stops. Launching DVD player results in the alert "There was an initialization error - a valid device could not be found for playback". The drive shows up in Disk Utility. The drive sounds like it's scanning when I select "Mount" in disk utility but the disk doesn't mount. It's possible to eject a DVD or CD from the drive using the eject tab in the Disk Utility sidebar. If I shut down the computer and bring it back up I can hear the drive scanning the disk but then nothing further happens. I've tried resetting the SMS and PRAM with no results. The drive is connected directly to the computer, not through a USB hub, and I've tried several of the computer's built-in USB ports, all to no avail. I've selected "Open DVD Player" in the System Preferences/CDs & DVDs. The drive is a year old but I suspect it's a software problem with the iMac rather than the mechanics or optics of the drive. This one's got me baffled.
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10), 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM
Posted on Oct 20, 2015 5:15 AM
Thanks Jason L,
Apple Support didn't have any answers. I'm guessing that a .kext file had somehow been corrupted and that updating to the newest El Capitan would perhaps reset everything. It did. I'm back in business.
- Allen
Posted on Oct 21, 2015 8:58 PM
