MBA Superdrive: Silver side UP!!!

I just received my second (replacement) MBA Superdrive and found the same problem as the first: the disc would not mount and does not show up under "Devices". The "instruction manual" consists of a few lines of obvious information. The disc utility and hardware profiler show that the disc is connected via USB, but no action-actually, it spins the disc and then ejects it. The first time, support had no clue. The second time, the support person asked me if the drive had the black (apple logo) side up or down. Being an Apple loyalist, I had placed it black side up. He asked me to flip it **Silver side up** and it worked fine.

I suggested that Apple adds another line to this meager set of instructions to help other misguided MBA users in using this drive. The drive still does not show up in the finder or under devices unless there is a disc in the drive. They might explain this one too.

Mac book Air Super Drive, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Feb 14, 2008 10:53 AM

19 replies

Rhyd

Level 3

806 points

Feb 15, 2008 10:44 AM in response to jchunter

Those that you mention are all actual media. If you use a media reader, then the connection does not show up until some media such as a card, smart card, or cf, etc is inserted.

The MBA superdrive functions as it should, displaying media when there is media to display just as any other superdrive does.

sajawebb

Level 1

5 points

Feb 16, 2008 6:17 PM in response to Rhyd

Wow did you scratch the SuperDrive while it was upside down? I didn't have that problem! I assumed the black rubber went on the bottom, however, if it did go silver side down...I would have placed it on a cloth or something.

Rhyd

Level 3

806 points

Feb 16, 2008 6:57 PM in response to sajawebb

sajawebb: your post indicates replying to me... I have not even taken my MBA superdrive out of its wrappings. I don't know why or how the OP placed the superdrive on its top.

Duffy

Level 2

315 points

Feb 16, 2008 8:06 PM in response to jchunter

I'm glad you got everything figured out. Before I started laughing too hard I had some flashbacks of a few "duh" experiences of my own.

Anyways, this reminds me of a situation I ran into a few years ago. I was working at a TV station while in college and the station decided to go hi-tech and switch everyone over from typewriters to computers. Talk about confusion. I'm sure all of us use mice from time to time and don't really realize how confusing they can be for newbies. I had two instances that make me smile to this day.

One gentleman called me into his office to help him with his mouse. He told me over the phone that his mouse was not working. I showed up a few minutes later to find him shaking his mouse quite vigorously. I asked him what was going one and he explained that no matter how hard he shook the mouse he couldn't get the cursor to move across the screen!

Gentleman number two called me on the phone to let me know his mouse was broken as well. I went to his office and had him show me what was wrong. He moved the mouse around on the pad and the cursor seemed to track OK. Well it did until the mouse reached the far right side of the mousepad which happened to butt up against a wall. The wall was preventing him from moving any further to the right. Instead of picking up the mouse and starting again on the left side of the pad he just gave up and called me to fix the mouse.

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MBA Superdrive: Silver side UP!!!