MATSHITA superdrive has died

Try to reset your PRAM. Restart your computer, and before the grey screen comes up hold down the command (apple), option, p, and r keys. Hold these until you hear the startup sound again. (You might want to continue to hold the keys until you hear the sound a third time, just to make sure it worked). If that doesn't work, you can reset the SMC. Just shut your computer off, unplug everything, including the power, wait for 15-30 seconds, and plug everything in and your computer should be working.

chrisasha wrote:
There seems to be a great many Apple users having problems suddenly finding that their Matshita UJ-846 Superdrives just stop working. This problem affects both OS 10.5 and 10.4.11

And UJ-85J for that matter. Mine has decided--out of the blue--that there is no such thing as a blank DVD:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J:

Firmware Revision: FCQ5
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type: DVD-R
ID: CMC MAG. AM3
Blank: No
Erasable: No
Overwritable: No
Appendable: Yes
Write Speeds: 2x, 4x, 8x


That's on any and every DVD I put in the drive. From a batch I've used about a third of so far without a hitch. And picking disks from the middle (ish) at random in case it was a run of defective disks in the batch.

(And my DVD recorder for the TV thinks the same disks are blank and doesn't complain at all)

I can still burn CDs (or, that is, the last blank I had around here burned okay). But DVDs, forget it.

Considering what I've been reading on the web today about these Matshita drives Apple is using, I'm thinking seriously of buying an external Pioneer (which is recommeded often where people are talking about the Matshita). I'm finding a lot of complaints that Apple has had this problem before and nobody's been able to get their attention about it.

Hi, seems I'm not the only one with problems.

I can burn a CD no problem, but not a DVD. I have burned things to DVD before, but have been trying unsuccessfully to burn a small movie to a DVD tonight and I get an error message saying the device can't calibrate the laser to that type of media, have been trying a DVD+R, might go out and buy a batch of different ones, just to see. I recently upgraded to leopard, seems to be a bit of a problem!

Don't know if it'll read a pre recorded DVD tho, better try that too!! EEK!


MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846:

Firmware Revision: FB2U
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

Strangely enough, my problem seems to have been solved by buying some different DVD media, but I shall keep looking back to see what news there is.

matSHITa's are picky about what media they like as you found out.

The only thing that has been in mine is the Leopard DVD. I use 2 external Pioneer 110D's flashed to 110 Region Free and no Rip-Lock.

Now I have the same problem!
I have a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J...
I can't burn any DVDs!!!! Ahhh! Does anyone know how much Apple charges at the store to replace it or fix it? I don't have that extra protection package thing... I should've bought it... I trusted Apple. I can see the drive in Disk Utility... but when I open an app that needs the DVD drive, it says that it can't run because there was no Super Drive found... I'm confused.

It is going to be twice what an external drive costs. Listen to Lakewoodlawnman and get the external drive. Be sure to get firewire so you may boot from it. Looking at the pictures on line of the inside of one of these white or aluminum case (not the pro towner) type iMacs and what it takes to dig the drive out it looks like it is going to fatigue the little harnesses etc. to be opening it up. I am waiting for a well made drive that will fit as opposed to another turkey like we have. Then it may be worth the surgery.

When I was first getting into machining the old woman at the supply counter (the owner, I suspect a machinist during WW II) would try and teach me what I was doing wrong and straighten me out. The last thing she would say as I was leaving her store was "Listen to Mother" . . .

Listen to Mother

Barkingmad

I think you may be correct that there is a software or driver problem. After replacing my Superdrive, which couldn't burn and verify sucessfully,

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1369604&stqc=true

I found it still would not read verified TDK-R data DVD's burned on a windows machine. The Mac can burn and read the same DVD's itself.

Further, an external Firewire drive that reads fine when attached to a windows machine could not read these discs when attached to my Mac. Movie DVD's burned on the same discs by windows machine are recognized by the Mac.

Uh, really, no thanks. I cannot afford buying an external drive... I was hoping for a more exact answer (if anyone has ever asked at the store). I'm gonna take her in.
Thanks for the advice, though. I will probably have to buy an external one if the store charges too much. Thanks.

P.S. "Listen to mother" LOL

I have an iMac G5 with iSight, that is having the same issue as others here. First it stopped recognizing blank DVDs, then it stop reading any and all DVD discs. The drive now only works as a CD drive that can read and write CDs.
My drive is a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846 with firmware FA0G. I tried to find newer firmware to fix my drive issues, but no luck.

Sense Apple does not seem to be listening to our cries for help, all of here to post to these Apple Feedback pages.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
and
http://www.apple.com/support/feedback/

...Ariffer

Judd Carlos,

To be more specific I have seen prices mentioned here to get the internal optical dirve replace for on the order of two hundred to two hundred fifty American dollars (not sure where you are in the world I should have looked at your profile).

I bought an external a few months ago after shopping around for seventy five dollars and free shipping. On 2008 introductory good guy deal. May be a bit more now especially for fire wire.

My new external drive wound up being noticeably faster than the internal. I would mention brand but there are several good ones. I did not research as much as I wish I had but we needed to get on with it during the holidays.

Closer to the mark?

Im going to add to this discussion. Had my iMac since July 2006, and never had a problem burning dvds until the last couple of months. felt it mite have been the dvds (datawrite titanium 8x dvd-r)but had a huge batch of them for about a year and they have always worked plus they work fine in my other pc & laptop.

the drive sounds like its trying to read the disc, then will either just stop, or spit the disc out automatically.

However burning cds is fine. no probs at all.

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846:

Firmware Revision: FB2U
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: No



still no ideas?

monkfeesh,

I am responding out of courtesy but not sure you intended to reply to me (barkingmad). Here is the settings on my drive for what it is worth. Most of it I have no idea what it means. However since my drive problem happened on the second CD of a two disc burn and both play fine I can be pretty sure none of these settings were changed/caused the disc to not be ejectable after the burn; which was my problem. The middle name of these drives says it all. . .yes?

Now that I have actually looked at some of that gobblty gook I see that the firmware update info is missing. Not sure where to look for that. It has been several months since the stuck disc happened.

But as I said it ejected the first disc of the burn I would expect it to eject the second.

your brother in disc ejecting,
barkingmad

Type : Disk

Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J Media
Media Type : CDROM
Connection Bus : ATA
Connection Type : Internal
Connection ID : Device 0
Device Tree : /PCI0@0/PATA@1F,1/PRID@0/@0:0
Locked : Yes
Writable : No
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
CDROM : Yes
Optical Media Type : CD-R
Device Type : CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Location : Internal
Total Capacity : 0 Bytes
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0

Message was edited by: barkingmad

Message was edited by: barkingmad

Yeah, count me in. My (conspiracy) theory is self destructing drives. I bought by iMac CoreDuo 17 of May, 2006. I just tried with TDK DVD-RW (1-2x) media and after thinking, crunching and whirling, it spat the disc out. My G5's drive reads/writes same disc just fine. It seems to recognise CD s and CD-R s just fine. Here's my drive for posterity:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846:

Firmware Revision: FB2U
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: No

I will now go out and get some other RW media and see how it goes.