Dvd's won't mount

I changed the system prefs to open handbrake when inserting a DVD and now the DVD mounts. I assume other changes may give a necessary kick.

I've read every post from the top of this thread so add me to the list .. Dito, ditto with my 106D Pio-sneer drive. I am about to go call Cancom in London to supply/fit a new drive (a 111? as previously posted?) and more RAM while I'm there.

It must be the drive because I just got a nice man in the Regent Street Apple shop to feed a problematic DVD and it opened no problem. I didn't ask him which drive he had, sorry.

So I mean to cut out any extra hassel and just go for the new drive without wasting more precious downtime. It seems this is the way to go, folks. One last thing though. Trevor, the last poster mentioned 'open handbrake' in system preffs - is this an application to choose when a dvd is inserted?

One more victim here. G5 dual 2ghz. I didn't notice when it's stopped working because everything verified in Toast. Same thing, no mounting, doesn't even show up. And DVD's I burned several months ago still work. Any favorites for a replacement DVD? Pioneer 110 or 111? tia. : >

Dinerdog,

Well I would go get the latest which may be the 111 which in fact I'm picking up tomorrow. I'll relay any feedback as soon as I've installed it.

RA

I have bought and installed a new Pioneer 111DBK within 20 minutes - it was a bit fiddly at first but it really is very simple. The G5 has recognised the new drive but - and here's the catch: the tray snags on the upper part of the optical drive slot - the 111 is larger than my old 106!

I just called my supplier and - get this, he suggested I tear off the front bezel of the actual tray which I guess will void my guarantee if I want a refund. I tried doing this this on the old drive and sure enough, it's just stuck on with glue but apart from that, I'm not sure what else to do because the drive sits very tight in four slots and won't move down.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks,

RA.

G5 1.8 dual Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1GB RAM

I have bought and installed a new Pioneer 111DBK
within 20 minutes - it was a bit fiddly at first but
it really is very simple. The G5 has recognised the
new drive but - and here's the catch: the tray snags
on the upper part of the optical drive slot - the 111
is larger than my old 106!

I just called my supplier and - get this, he
suggested I tear off the front bezel of the actual
tray which I guess will void my guarantee if I want a
refund. I tried doing this this on the old drive and
sure enough, it's just stuck on with glue but apart
from that, I'm not sure what else to do because the
drive sits very tight in four slots and won't move
down.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks,

RA.

G5 1.8 dual
Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1GB RAM

That's exactly what you're supposed to do. Lift the front bezel off of the tray. It should come off fairly easily.

Ok I'll do that but I'm nervous of damaging the eject mechanism.

RA

Folks,

All is well. After reading this thread from the very beginning and hearing so tales of woe with unmounted DVDs it seems that taking the plunge and forking out for a new Pioneer 111 drive (£40), my troubles are over, for now.

I can mount the DVDs that were ignored and I can hopefully look forward to high-speed burning through Toast 7. I didn't need to worry about Cable Select Mode, nor with firmware issues.

And when the installed tray snagged, simply levering off the front bezel clears the contact with the drive slot. Thanks to all who helped.

Rgds

RA

I, too, just started having this problem. I've had my G5 Dual 1.8 GHz for 3 years. I transfer a lot of home movies from VHS onto DVD-Rs and the DVDs play fine after burning. Today, my CDs play fine, my commercial DVD movies I've purchased play fine, but my DVDs that I burned through iDVD won't play. The tray just ejects back out. I've tried about 12 DVDs that I burned and got the same result. I called AppleCare and they told me to take it to an Apple store for repair. Anybody know about what repair they are talking about? Is this a new problem with G5s? Thanks for any help!

Hello Sandy16,

Since I left the message above I have had no issues whatsoever with ejecting and unmounting disks and would recommend you just go and buy another drive and forget Apple's 'we'll repair it'.

Installing it oneself is cheap, it's problem free and moreover, a much faster way of overcoming this ridiculous issue with Panasonic/Apple drives without sending your unit, seemingly away forever.

Somewhere at the top of this post I recall someone mentioning why this issue arose with G5s though I really can't remember now. I do know I wasted dozens of disks and weeks of time. I should have followed others' advice from the beginning ..

Thanks for your reply. I'm not good with computer hardware and not sure I would trust myself to do that. I'll try Apple and let you know what happens. Glad yours is working well.

Well, i have the same problem. I can't read anymore all my backups ( DVDs). It is really not cool. My G5 is 2 and half years old. Too young to die ! I wished Apple would come up and tell us what is it all about. We are too many with the same problem. There must be something about those G5 they don't want to tell us . Is that possible ?!!

have a nice day all over the word !

I think because of the G5 processor - they are always heating up - and pulling dust in.

I think after 2-1/2 years - our DVD drives just have literally choked to death.

Fortunately a new, and better, Pioneer DVD reader/writer is available for $43 bucks plus shipping. And it is easy to install - and works first shot!

I remember my first CD writer costing me $2700 plus shipping - not a typo...

So stop pulling hair, bite the bullet and get a new DVD writer... It really is worth it.

We have two G5 with 106D superdrives, both recently stopped mounting DVD they have burnt. They mount the disk after verification, but once ejected and re inserted they fail to mount.

We have 2 other machines with superdrives 1 with a CDRW
imac intel with MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846
G5 imac MATSHITA CD-RW CW-8124:
and Power mac PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-104

All these drives can read and mount the disks burnt by the 106D superdrives

I think apple needs to solve this one I believe there is nothing wrong with the drives it must have been a software update that has produced this error.

The probability of two drives failing at the very same time seems unlikely.

If anyone has a solution or work around - please post it. (I can't believe that buying a new drive is the solution)

I doubt it was a System change. I had been on 10.3.8 for the longest while. My DVD first decided it wasn't going to write DVDs...but it didn't tell me. Then it would read them.... more time went by, and it would only write small amounts to CDs. Extremely frustrating when you have work to be snail mailed out.

The one "excuse" I could find that, well, sort of made sense, is the amount of dust a dual-processor pulls in. I'm serious. do yourself a favor, open your G5 today and dust it out. Wait one week, open again, and see how much more dust is in there. I don't know about you, but I hadn't any reason to open my computer for a very long time.

Meanwhile - I composed this on another thread -- and gathered it from everyone that had advice about what to do with their DVDs.

IMHO - just go get a new one - It's 43 bucks -and works -- GREAT.

*********

If you read the other threads about this "SuperDrive" you will see there are some things you can do before you call the drive dead. BTW - your symptoms are not like the rest of ours - so keep your fingers crossed.

You could

1) zap the perimeters
Re: Superdrive gave up the ghost -- where to start?
Posted: Oct 26, 2006 11:32 AM in response to: dçøyan
From: Sherry Johnson
Frst, boot to open firmware holding apple-option-o-f and then type in the following commands--
reset-nvram (hit return)
set-defaults (hit return)
reset-all (hit retur

2) Rewrite the Permissions through Disk Utility
Can't find the original post for this- but guarantee it was one of the suggestions given

3) Download PatchBurn - courtesy of Michael McMann1
http://www.patchburn.de/download.html

4) Change Your Media - courtesy of Sue DIllini
May I suggest that you use Verbatim DVD-R at 4x or slower to burn.
Read these:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86130
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151900
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302925

4) Try using it through a different program - like Toast
several different posts - hard to say who gets the credit...

5) My personal favorite - (also courtesy of Sherry Johnson) remove all electrical everything from the computer and open it up. Remove fan and see little silver square (on the bottom of the motherboard) it has a little white circle button - press and hold for a full second - it's called resetting the motherboard.

6) Let Apple know (courtesy of Sue Dillini)
Tell them about it here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

7) and after you've tried all these "helpful" hints - Buy a new one.
Courtesy of Steve Boultbee
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/
and installation instructions are here: (but he lets you know they forgot to tell you to remove the faceplate first.) http://www.apple.com/support/powermac/doityourself/storage.html