I have a 17" MacBook Pro, purchased Jan 2007, under AppleCare, but I am not anywhere near an Apple store as I am overseas.
MATSHITADVD-R UJ-85J, Rev FAV1
Sony DVD-R media, both blank and previously burned (with this drive) fail to mount and then are ejected. This happened after upgrading to Leopard with a clean install. The discs work in a UJ-857 in my 15" MBP. The 17" will read other discs just fine and burning CDs works.
Just adding to the list of frustrated MBP owners. i haven't been able to read DVDs for months and months... thought i was the only one. my mistake.
i've tried lens cleaners, electronic grade compressed air, resetting all the (insert technical jargon here) that was suggested on various blogs, posts, etc., all with no success.
i guess it's time to buy another product. planned obsolescence, anyone?
To the person who suggested a cleaning disk: THANK YOU!!!!!
Recently, I've been having a very bad problem with my MBP's display (have to use a "weak" clothespin to keep the screen from freezing and fading to grey), and I was beside myself to also buy my first game and find that the [DVD] disc was always getting ejected. Google made me even more nervous as many people with drive problems ultimately had to replace it, and I'm glad I found this thread. I'm not sure if I'm out of the woods yet, but it is a good sign.
Hey, having same issue, all media works faultlessly except for DVD-R blanks and previously written. I have done a little trial an error though following my not so helpful conversation with someone at apple. All he could offer me was the usual reset of P RAM and repair disc permissions. He then prompted me to go to my nearest apple store and have the drive replaced (at my own expense).
If all media span up and was spit back out i would have probably done that straight away, but the specific DVD-R problem just smacks too much of being a software issue, especially as this happened an update.
*My conclusion in brief of my trial and error is the colour of the Blank / Written DVD-R's is what the drive is struggling with.*
I noticed that the Purple DVD+R's that i have no problem with both before and after burning are quite a DARK purple.
A lot of the DVD-R's i have tried are quite a medium/light purple and get even lighter after being burnt. In both instances they get ejected from the drive.
I found a Blank Philips DVD-R that was considerably darker than most, upon inserting it, the DVD actually mounted, and asked what i wanted to do. So i burnt some data to the Disc, and after it had ejected i couldnt get it to remount, but the data had written as i tested it on another computer. The Philips DVD-R was DARK purple to start with and became MEDIUM/LIGHT after burning.
*Conclusion so far is the drive cant read Puple media that is very light in colour.*
I had already discovered green previously written media would spin up and spit out. But i tried a new Blank Green DVD-R, and the same as above happened, it mounted and allowed me to burn, but then i couldnt read it after burning.
*PRE BURN -> Medium/Dark Green - Light Green <- Burnt*
This is either a fluke that the discs mounted, or evidence the drive has become too sensitive to read media of certain shades. I cant see me getting anywhere with apple on the situation, im kind of hoping that installing Snow leopard when its out might throw someting new into the pot. (but that might just be clutching at straws).
Same issue, I updated the firmware, and all of the sudden I can't get my mac to acknowledge any content on an authored dvd (data or movie). The drive will read CD's, music and data, but every DVD I pop in, is identified as blank.
Very frustrating.
C'mon Apple, somebody knows something.
I've tried the disc cleaner, compressed air, resetting PRAM.
The fact that this happened essentially overnight, after the firmware update has me thinking.
I have the same problem. Can't read DVD and CD.
I v tried the "spray " solution but the problem is still persisting.
From the number of posts here and in similar topic I understanf this is a main issue for MBP. The question is: why APPLE is not giving a good answer to solve this
bug? Let's call things with a proper name...this is a main BUG !!!!
A BIG, FAT, STRONG BUG......
same problem here. CD's work fine, reading commercial DVD's also works fine, DVD-R.. no way. spits 'em out, or just acts as if they are not in the drive.
Given the number of posts here, there is something fishy going on. It doesn't seem to be related to the age of the machine, but it does seem to be related to a SW update. So what is apple not revealing? It is hard to imagine what kind of SW change would cause these symptoms..
To not have an Apple technician chime in on this issue is just ridiculous. If there is a know problem just say so - at least we know we need a new superdrive. One day this is going to bite Apple on the *** - things are good now but this is how things start down that path - Windows 7 anyone. The Arrogance!
So I took my MacBook Pro to the Genius Bar the other week to get this problem checked. I tried to burn on to a couple different media: Memorex DVDs, and Verbatim DL+DVDs and the same problem always came up, "medium write error". The Genius said that it was probably a faulty drive and suggested that I get the drive replaced. Since I don't have warranty on my MacBook, it would roughly cost me around $300 for a new drive plus additional fees for service and labor. It would cost a little less if I did it with Apple. But either way I wasn't going to pay for a new drive.
Then the Genius suggested to test my drive once again to see if it indeed was the drive. He booted my MacBook Pro with a Leopard (10.5) OS through the Apple Store network. What do you know, it successfully burned media on to a blank DVD (memorex branded provided by the Genius). Then we went back onto the OS installed on my laptop and it didn't work. The Genius then diagnosed that there was something wrong with my OS and that I should reinstall it (I was running Tiger OSX 10.4). So I went back home and reinstalled it and found that I had the same problem with burning media onto my DVDs, "medium write error". I couldn't help but wonder what was the problem and thought that it was Tiger OSX in general.
So I went out and bought Snow Leopard expecting that maybe they'd fix the problem with the superdrive. IT STILL DOES NOT WORK. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM??? Now my MacBook Pro can't even read blank DVDs, it just sits there, unmounted, and spits it back out.
It reads DVDs with content on it fine.
Sorry to waste your time reading this. No clue as to what's wrong, just wanted to vent. =)
-edit-
Okay it can mount the DL+DVD, I haven't tried burning stuff on it yet though.
I have had a similar problem as many others. In my case, before holiday I backed up some things to DVD-R disks. So, today I went to retrieve an item on one of the disks and it would not be read. I tried the others and none of the 11 DVD-R could be read in my MacBook Pro. After reading a number of these posts, especially one of the posts that indicated that it might be a problem with the type of media being read by the DVD drive, I tried some DVD-R from a number of years ago. I got some to be read. Then, I tried the ones which previously could not be read and they could now be read. I have no idea what this problem is but it sure is strange. At least, I can read these backup disks. I am still going to the Apple Store and have them check it out.
