Lee Dunkelberg
Level 1 (20 points)

Q: El Capitan killed DVD drive

After updating to El Capitan on my mid 2010 iMac | 3.08 GHz Intel Core i3 | 16 GB memory 1067MHzDDR3, the computer: 

  1. has lost its built-in DVD drive.
  2. does not recognize the drive. Finder cannot "see" it
  3. Insert disc (which, yes, works find in other DVD drives) and it spins it around back and forth for awhile and then spits it out

This seems to be a fairly widespread problem.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), iOS 9.0.2, just updated (darn it)

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 12:38 PM

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Lee Dunkelberg

Q: El Capitan killed DVD drive

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  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Aug 3, 2016 10:35 AM in response to tnbriggs
    Level 6 (11,909 points)
    Aug 3, 2016 10:35 AM in response to tnbriggs

    Did you try with other DVD?

    Did you try from another user account?

     

    FWIW, I have had no trouble playing the few DVD I tried in El Capitan's DVD Player - either from a usb DVD drive or by playing a mounted DVD disk image file. It usually comes down to some old software causing problems, which is why some things work fine on a brand new user account or on a clean installation of EC.

  • by tnbriggs,

    tnbriggs tnbriggs Aug 4, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 4, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

    Star Wars: Force Awakens DVD is the only one the DVD player app has refused to play, thus far. Other commercial DVDs & my own authored DVDs play ok.

     

    As I indicated in my original post, I think the issue is with some exotic copy protection scheme Disney has on that DVD that the DVD player app (in El Cap) can't deal with. Since the DVD plays fine with VLC in El Cap and with the DVD player app in Snow Lep, I agree that it is software related, the faulty software being the DVD player app in El Cap & the copy protection scheme on the DVD.

     

    Interestingly, the MacbookPro is a boot camp dual boot machine. When I try to play that same DVD in Win 7 Media Player I get an error message regarding the graphics card and copy protection, which confirms my suspicion that it's the copy protection scheme on the DVD that's confusing the players, in both Win7 & El Cap.

     

    My component Samsung DVD/Blu-Ray player connected to my television plays the DVD fine.

     

    Thanks for your input.

  • by SigersonLTD,

    SigersonLTD SigersonLTD Sep 4, 2016 3:02 PM in response to rkaufmann87
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 4, 2016 3:02 PM in response to rkaufmann87

    This looks to be a known issue, at least that's what the store that I bought my refurbed 21.5" iMac at has said.

  • by MzLortta,

    MzLortta MzLortta Sep 11, 2016 5:45 PM in response to Lee Dunkelberg
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 11, 2016 5:45 PM in response to Lee Dunkelberg

    We have a DVD drive we got from Apple last summer and El Capitan won't even recognize it.  What's up?

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Sep 12, 2016 2:23 AM in response to MzLortta
    Level 6 (11,909 points)
    Sep 12, 2016 2:23 AM in response to MzLortta

    El Capitan can use DVD drives just fine.

    The common cause for trouble is usually older software that is causing a conflict.

     

    A few usual things to try:

     

    - Start in Safe Mode

    - Try with a new user account

    - Run Etrecheck and post its report here.


    You can also try a clean install on a separate disk or partition, to make sure that the drive is being recognized.

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