Q: Drive won't read any dvd-ejects it automatically after spinning some time

Very interesting post and good sleuthwork, Marian.

To add to the confusion , however, my own 15" Santa Rosa (MBP3.1) and current MBP 13" (MBP5.5) are both running OSX 10.6.2 (and 10.6.1 and 10.6, before it) and neither of them have had any problems with recognising or playing video DVDs or recognising and burning blank ones under any version of Snow Leopard.

Both of them came with Matshita superdrives, rather than your LG(?) model installed, though.

What I'm saying, I guess, is that it can't be a general Snow Leopard issue, but something dependent on other factors as well.

Cheers

Rod

Cheers

Rod

My HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N drive only reads older cds and personally burned cds. I was wondering what was happening when the drive only burned dvds after 4 or 5 rejected and ruined blank dvds. Drive would not open a new application dvd. so I can't download my new animation software. Dang.

Sounds like a crazy recurring situation APPLE.

So have you tried a cleaning disc yet, Julian?

Cheers

Rod

Yippee! For months I thought I was the only one with this MacBook problem. I just happened to discover this thread, which is by far the longest I've ever seen. One day my drive just didn't work, still doesn't. It won't recognize any kind of disk. I push one in and the drive just sits there doing nothing (a bit like Apple when it comes to acknowledging this issue).

Model: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080M
Revision: AA26

With sadness i must return and say that my drive has lost all ability to read any DVD (data DVD included). It appears indeed that it was "dyeing" while i was running the installation tests. It's even more sad when you think I've had this MBP for less than one year and I've used the DVD less than 30 or 40 times by now.

Click'n'go to service shop.

30 or 40 times? Lucky. I think I've had a CD or DVD slide in and out of my drive about 15-25 times at most.

Perhaps it is a case of "use it or lose it" (or "not letting the dust settle" )? A lot of my work comes in the form of research documentation on CD's and DVD's. Few days go past when I don't use the optical drives in my two MacBook Pros at least once - often significantly more. I must have burnt at least a couple of hundred discs in the older (2007) one, too. Yet both drives are still going strong.

Whatever the cause of other peoples' issues it doesn't look as if they are simply "wearing out" from over-use, if our comparative experiences are anything to go by!

Cheers

Rod

No, I don't think overuse is an issue. I WILL be getting a drive cleaner this week to see if that resolves the problem of reading one DVD but not another (which reads fine on the G4).

I'm pretty sure they build these units with a lot of use in mind. But then I've seen people drive brand new cars off the lot and have serious problems with the car after 10,000km's of average driving.

When I bring in my newer Mac to have this sorted out, I'd better not be paying a penny for warranty work. It's bad enough I have to drive for an hour to get to an Apple store..

Why would you have to pay for warranty work? Hardware is covered, unless it is caused by abuse or misuse.

If you don't want to drive it in, call AppleCare (800-275-2273 in the USA) and have them send you a (free) overnight box to ship it to them for the repair. I've seen repairs come back in as little as three days.

Why pay for warranty work (labour)? Because I've come to expect this from any company. I've seen it spun in the direction of, "well sir, this is a user problem. Here's what you did wrong for this to happen..." (which I know I did nothing wrong, but I've seen this happen to other people with other companies in the past). Yeah, I'm kinda cynical.

I'm just saying that I've come to expect very little from ALL customer support, worldwide. I like setting things up for a pleasant surprise.

That being said, I live in Canada. According to Westworld (Edmonton), they said there's about a six day wait on parts, if it's a hardware issue. Not that I have a problem with the wait - I'm using the G4 right now anyway (for live shows AND for regular home use) so the MBP is pretty much on short term leave as it is...

Hi everybody!
I want assign personal "Kudos" to Rod Hagen: it was wright!
He's the man!

In fact, for my optical drive, lens dirtiness was the problem!
Thank you Rod, thank you very very much for your strenuous brave defense of the "lenses dirtiness theory"!

I've just disassembled my mbpro and opened the superdrive shell for physically clean the tiny laser lens!

All work perfectly at first shot!
Tuts from ifixit was very useful, a little bit of courage and here we go!
Problem solved for me!

bye

Well done, sylven, and thank you for the kind words!

You are braver person than I, though. I've never tried to disassemble the drive itself to clean the lense! Doesn't sound like a job for an amateur! How difficult was it once the drive had been removed?

Cheers

Rod

Not so brave, honestly..
Perhaps some earlier practice give me the "braveness"!
In fact i've disassembled the mbpro two times for hd replacement!

Anyway, the fixit website is very well explanatory! Sincerely very few steps are described once you've extract the drive from the slot.
Four-five little screws phillips #0 and smoothly removed the thin metallic shell: that's all I did!!
(the screws holds the brackets wrapped around the enclosure too)

The lens is very tiny, not visible dirtiness at all, but by the way I've gently caressed her

And that's it!
All works perfectly.. thanks to you, again!

I've taken MBPs, MB's, PB's and iBooks apart quite a few times myself , sylven. It was the dismantling of the drive itself that wins you the special order of bravery, I reckon!

Thanks for additional instructions. If my own drives ever get around to not responding to the "cleaner disc" treatment I'll now know what to do!

What did you actually use to clean the lense? I remember that back in the days when most optical drives were "tray loaders" I used to use a little camel hair brush for such purposes, that I had borrowed from my photographic darkroom kit, where it was used for cleaning dust spots off negatives. (How times change. Heck most cameras actually used film in those days! )

Cheers

Rod

Message was edited by: Rod Hagen