SuperDrive Won't Read Discs at all

More often than not Quality is the issue as well as the correct Format.
This issue has been discussed many times in the fourms.
Many users are not aware of the big difference in the quality in the Media for sale on the market today.
There is also a difference in the quality of the media in the same package from one disc to another.
So it seems this issue boils down to the best in over all quality of manufactured MEDIA.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
Again, after viewing the quality guide, some users will expieriance some confusion.
I have tried several different brands and personally had my best luck with.
This Media will explain that it will burn in the OLDER as well as the NEWER Computers. It means that this media will burn at the best speed, your computer is capable of.
Again most users are not aware that there is a huge difference.
Again many computers are capable of reading and writing DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW as well as DL, Going under the aumption DVD is just DVD, which of course is not the case, have a look at the link below.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvd
SO in closing, you will have your best luck using DVD-R Media and one that is high enough in quality that it will burn as stated above. 1X through16X
Don

I have the same problem. I'm very confidence it's not a problem with media, as disks that used to work in this machine (Tiger install DVD, for instance, many music CDs) don't work anymore. System Profiler seems to indicate everything is fine. Should I just replace the SuperDrive?

Good idea. I tried it, and no go.

I also tried opening the unit up and seeing if a cable was disconnected. I don't think that one is. My question now is the SuperDrive broken, are the cables connecting it inside the machine, or are both?

I came on this forum as I have the same problem. For some time now my drive has been unable to read discs. It started as an intermittent problem which I put down to variations in the media used, but soon it ejected everything; CDs, DVDs and even the Apple DVDs I'd bought to back-up. Now I want to upgrade to 10.4 and can't because the disc won't stay in the drive. I'm trying to organise a repair online but where is the link? Everytime I click a repair link, the options I am given do not include eMac. What can I do, I'm going mad and am not at all impressed by the Apple support.

I am having this trouble too. Am unable to backup, burn iDVD, etc.

Creating a new user fixed it temporarily, but then after cancelling an iDVD burn that was taking forever (12 hours) it won't read dvds anymore.

Does anyone have any help?

I have the same problem on my MacBook Pro. I've had it less than a year and now is won't read many new, blank cds or dvds. I've had it in twice for new superdrives and it still will not read many different brands of discs. I've spent hours trying to fix this and had my computer out for days now. Help.

Have any of you tried cleaning the lens? Doing this has revived my optical drives more than once. Cleaning kits can be found for $10 at many computer retailers.

Connect a external FireWire & USB (FireWire only is just fine, not USB only) SuperDrive (DVD/CD Burner). Use it instead when your eMac can not read the DVD in the internal SuperDrive. Works great on my 700 Mhz eMac!

I'm finding it difficult to find Mac compatible external CD/DVD drives. Is there a list somewhere out there?


Thanks,

V

You may need to order online, I find Lacie the best brand. Here the cheapest DVD burner on a 3rd party site: http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/d-lac-301195u . Did that help?

I have a variant of this problem. The drive in my eMac is an HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4481B, if that helps. I have absolutely no problem with audio CDs, whether burning or playing. But with data CDs (photos, documents or software) my computer will open most CDs within, say, 20 seconds; but others (with about the same amount of stuff on them) take up to 2 minutes, and some will not open at all and then are almost impossible to eject. The drive emits rather strange, though quiet, sounds when trying to open one of the recalcitrant disks.

With some, I have found that if the CD will not open, ejecting it (with difficulty!) and re-inserting it will sometimes do the trick. And on one occasion a multisession CD partially opened — i.e. one session opened but the other two did not until I ejected and re-inserted it. This suggests software rather than hardware, does it not?

I have cleaned the lens, and I have carefully cleaned the pulley and belt that is accessible from outside when the disk tray is open with a little alcohol. And I have repaired permissions and have run the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance operations.

The fact that audio CDs and some data CDs work OK suggests to me that trying to create a different account is not going to help. The computer is only about 2 or 3 years old.

Any advice will be most gratefully received.

I wonder if the disks you refer too are relatively old ones? There was talk once of CD's not lasting as long as the manufacturers claimed they would. I'm wondering if this problem has been solved yet.

I have direct experience of this. I bought Disk Warrior a few years ago for my PowerMac. Alsoft supplied it on a CD. After I had the CD for a about two years the CD turned a ghastly yellow colour and became totally unreadable. And I hadn't done a back up copy either because my PowerMac is 'read only'.

Thank you,El Denio, for the information. Your predicament sounds worse than mine, since you have lost the use of valuable software. If CDs deteriorate like this, I am beginning to wonder what the best way to back up and preserve digital material is. I have tried BT's online Digital Vault, but it takes so immensely long to upload material that I have given up on it.

The disks that my computer won't read at all are, just as you say, old ones — or at least 4 to 6 years old — and only contain photographs of which I have got hard prints. They are disks made commercially by the photographic firm which used to process my films before I started to use a digital camera.

But the multi-session CD of which sometimes only one or two sessions appear on my desktop (until I have ejected and re-inserted the disk) is a very recent one, made by myself a few weeks ago on the same drive that I use for viewing CDs. It, too, only contains photographs. I suppose it may be that I was using cheap blank CDs.

Incidentally, I have not got, and have never had, any problems with opening and viewing DVDs.

When I was using the PowerMac under Mac OS 9 there was an extension with the word 'Kodak' in its name somewhere. It enabled the PowerMac to read those CDs that came from Photographic Shops (the one's where one handed in a print film and got back a set of of prints, a new film and a CD with ones photos on too). This should be built into OSX I feel, but might be corrupted on you machine.

So I now wonder, has anyone here tried running Disk Utility to check the HD for errors and, if necessary, fix permissions? Better still, has anyone run the latest version of *Disk Warrior* or *Tech Tool Pro 4.1?*

TTP 4.1 in particular is able to test out your Optical Drive's hardware too. Should be worth the investment even if you don't find your Optical Drive to be faulty as one can do other things with this software, like optimise ones HDD.

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=48