Burner - device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media.

Didn't have any compressed air but found an old CD laser lens cleaner disk in a box. Ran that through a couple of times and now it works like a champ again. I still think I will blast it with some air in the near future.

hey all I'm having the same problem "failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media" I tried the rearranging of the languages etc.... I also just tried a philips 6 brush dvd lens cleaner. No luck thus far. I've read that some people tried multiple times but I've yet to have any luck(this is the third go round for the cleaner. I'm burning a playlist/data disk directly from itunes.... cd-r audio cd's work fine burning. but I get the same initializing....blah blah blah...finishing within a few seconds after starting and it kicks the dvd+r out. I'm using memorex 16x 4.7gb 120min dvd's and never had a problem before. I've not upgraded to leopard or snow leopard as of yet.... can anybody please help me? the dvd can read and play movies the cleaner etc.... just not burning. I don't want to go out and purchase more dvds or anything else until i hear from anybody else having this problem.... i'm working on a macbook pro
MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version: 1.16f11
Serial Number: W872718WYAL
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


can anybody please please please help me.

Same problem!
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.33 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP21.00A5.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.14f5
Serial Number (system): W86460XVX6C
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2C3C314
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Parkerpress....

You are awesome! It worked perfectly. I can burn DVD's again after the cleaning! Thank you so much for posting that!

So much for "high tech" solutions -- the air blast took care of my problems with this issues completely. Thanks to all.

Have had this problem for a while, and discs that I found to work no longer worked after a period of time...

A very gentle blow with a compressed air nozzle across the DVD slot on my MBP C2D fixed it for me too. Go figure!

(Believe it or not, a drummer thought of this...)

Try putting another CD in the drive and playing it for a second or two. Eject the CD, then try to burn a CD again. It worked every time for me. You may have to repeat the process for each CD, but it works at least. Good luck.

Same error here, except this is happening on a brand new 27" iMac.

Compressed air fixed the problem for me too.

+1 on the compressed air.

I had the same problem as y'all - the superdrive in my MBP suddenly stopped burning disks and gave the ...laser power... error. Compressed air bursts appear to have done the trick. Thanks a bunch.

Hello.

So I had this issue this morning on my late 2009 unibody MBP, and I was screwing. I booked an appointment with my local Genius bar, and was psyching myself up for an argument as I've had bad experiences with them in the past.

So, before I go, I check some forums, and I come across this one. It seems like this error can occur for a few reasons -

1. The drive is dead
2. The drive has a dusty lens
3. The regional settings are incorrect

Well anyway, I was having the issue when using Memorex 8x DVD-R's and Imation 16x; so I tried other types of media. CDs worked fine; no suprise there. But, DVD-RWs worked. So, against all of my better judgement, I got a can of liquid based compressed air, and sprayed...

It worked.

Awesome!

So, anyway, my recommendation to anyone else having this issue, would be to try 4-5 different types of media, like CDs, DVDs, and RWs etc. If only one works, it's probably dust :P

Thanks Forum-people!!!! 😀

This happened to my new MacBook Pro when trying to burn my first disc! Thinking about it the design of the disk slot is prone to dust entering, especially on a laptop that is always on the move. Although not as nice and stylish, maybe Apple should consider using disc trays instead. Would definitely save a lot of frustration.

Had the same problem.
Discovered it when trying to burn project with iDVD. It would reach 'writing lead-in' stage then spit out the disc and tell me it was complete. The DVD was still blank!
Then tried burning data in Finder and got the 'laser power.....' notice.
Tried canned air to no avail.
Had a spare Mac Pro, whipped the whole optical drive cage out and simply swapped it over.
It's now purring beautifully.

I had the same problem after I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Since it happened right after this, and it affest all media including top quality Tayio Yuden, and it fails in toast and finder, it seems reasonable it's a snow leopard problem.

However a reboot restored it to working (for now!).