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

Add one more to the list. I was in the midst of ripping a new Beatles audio CD with my Matshita UJ-846 and it stopped and kicked out the disc. Since then I am not able to mount any kind of optical media -- the drive simply kicks it out, nor am I able to boot from the SL install disc.

Because that exact moment is happily recorded in my iTunes "Date Added" column for the songs it did import, I can see exactly when the problem started. Unfortunately, log files do not reveal more than has already been posted here.

Apple has released a few firmware updates for the SuperDrive, so it would be nice to see a fix for this drive too.

Try a cleaning disc jwjwj.

Cheers

Rod

Okay, I posted on other threads before I found this one, but...add me to the list.

I noticed about a week and a half ago that Toast Titanium 8.0.5 suddenly decided to not burn discs (any brand, any type) any more. iTunes (which I only use as a music player and an iPod conduit -- it ***** at ripping and burning) wouldn't burn. Burn wouldn't burn, either.

I've concluded this much in my case:
- The "standard" troubleshooting -- reset the PRAM, reboot, try a test account, etc., did not work.
- I tried a CD player cleaner - the kind with the brush embedded. That solved the problem for only a burn or two -- twice. (Then again, it's an OLD cleaner -- I bought it back in 1997!)
- I tried compressed air, which had the same success rate. It helped once or twice, but that's it. (Probably blew in some effing cold air)
- It has nothing to do with Snow Leopard -- I very unwisely got Snow Leopard the day it came out (I say "unwise" because I strongly preach against early adoption -- let the bugs get ironed out first!), but I had no problems with the OS itself.
- I have my MacBook set up as a dual-boot with Ubuntu Linux. When I booted into Ubuntu, all worked fine...
- However, I just concluded it's a HARDWARE problem, at least for me. It occurred to me that maybe the SuperDrive was overheating because I thought that maybe shutting down and rebooting into Linux gave the drive just enough time to cool off, which is probably why I could burn. So last night I tried a "marathon" CD burning session using Ubuntu. After three successful burns, the burning no longer worked.

I didn't get AppleCare, but I did get Best Buy's Performance Service Plan -- which happens to expire on December 30th.

HOWEVER -- I'm not joining this anti-Apple bandwagon that seems to be growing. If I've had this MacBook for two years and my only problem so far has been an errant optical drive, I'm not complaining. (Well, I also experienced a cracking case, which the Apple Store fixed for me the second I showed it to them -- no questions asked.) Beats the **** out of the PC I own, and the two PC laptops my wife has owned and has actually had to replace completely in the same amount of time...

As my extended plan is with Best Buy, I'll have to take it in. Best Buy's plan has been good to me on a few other products, but my only concern is that they'll probably ship my MacBook to California. (Seriously, I love Best Buy, but man...you could bring a camera to them and ask them to do so little as to remove a piece of string from the lens cap and they'll ship it to California.) I'm already going through MacBook withdrawal in anticipation! (I love my MacBook!!)

Anyway, here are my deets:

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N:

Firmware Revision: BP10
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB31.008E.B02
SMC Version (system): 1.24f2
Serial Number (system): flirzelkwerp
Hardware UUID: flirzelkwerp
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

If a cleaner worked, ScatteredFrog, even if only partially, it is pretty clear where the problem lies.

Either the lens is still somewhat dirty or the laser has lost sufficient power to need it scupulously clean.

Some people have actually reported great success in computers out of warranty (even when a cleaning disc didn't work at all) by simply removing the drive, removing its cover, and cleaning the lense manually.

In your case, as you still seem to have some form of warranty cover, replacing the drive is the obvious course, but if / when it recurs in future the manual cleaning routine is worth considering.

I've personally found myself that with the Apple (and other) slot loader drives cleaning them BEFORE problems get too obvious can keep them running for many years.

Cheers

Rod

Somewhere in "Help" after entering "Optical Drive" it says not to use lens-cleaning discs. Unfortunately I tried Lens-Cleaners before I learned about that. It didn't work, nor did "Repair Disc Permissions" or resetting PRam or resetting SML (the thing where you turn off, remove power cable and battery and hold the ON-Button for 5 seconds) or the cold-laptop-therory.

I'm running out of options

The "help" file simply suggests that you don't use a cleaning disc because of the very slight risk that it may get stuck, xavierschmit. I've personally been using them regularly in all of my slot loading drives since 2000 without any sign of such a problem occurring.

You say in another post in the MacBook forum that it actually resolved the issue for you for a week. This simply suggests that the drive is still somewhat dirty. You may want to check the cleanliness of the drive slot itself. It can act as something of a "dirt trap" , leading to further contamination being introduced into the drive whenever a disc is inserted.

It is not clear whether your computer is under warranty or not. If it is underwarranty take it to Apple and they will replace the drive even if it is simply dirty in most such cases. If not, then try cleaning it again.

Rod

Holy cow...

So I went out and bought the Memorex CD cleaner thingy (despite the fact that all their recordable media have proven to be crap)...tried to burn a CD in Toast -- failed.

I ran the cleaner through my MacBook probably about fifteen times. (The MacBook kept spitting it out, but every time I noticed it was making new sounds and taking longer time before ejecting.)

Then I burned a CD with Toast. SUCCESS! Then another -- failure. Tried another -- SUCCESS! Tried another -- and another -- both successes! Another -- but failed. Tried another -- success. Tried the most recent failed -- worked this time! (It DID have a lot of dust on it -- I wiped it off before I put it in the drive.)

And...these were all crappy Memorex CDs that I somehow acquired. (I'm a strictly Taiyo Yuden guy.) Memorex CDs SUCK...and sure enough, eventually the MacBook stopped burning....I tried another Memorex -- refused to touch it. Tried another weird CD brand (Benq or something) -- success! Another non-Memorex -- success!!

Rod -- thanks for emphasizing the dirty lens. Seriously, I'd much rather run a cleaner than sacrifice my MacBook for two weeks....wow...this was awesome....in fact, I never even burned this many CDs in a single day before.

Hi Jonas, glad you got it running again.

I find that once the drive has reached the stage where it needs a disc cleaner run to operate effectively it pays to use it again every 2 to 4 weeks. I suspect that by the time the lens has got dirty enough to develop problems there is often sufficient other dust etc around in the drive itself , or on the slot's "protective" material, to cause recontamination fairly rapidly.

Using this strategy the slot loading drives in computers from a Summer 2000 iMac, through an iMac G5, two MB's and two MBPs are all still working fine.



Cheers

Rod

Thanks for the update, ScatteredFrog.

Glad it worked!

With a bit of persistence (yours was greater than many people's! ;- ) ) it is amazing how many of these drives cleaning gets back into operation. Once you've reached this stage, I'd suggest you run it every few weeks, or at the first hint of trouble, though. My suspicion is that the amount of dirt that builds up in the drive , or in the slot "protector" material, makes re-contamination an issue in this situation.

Making sure any discs you put in the drive itself in future are scrupulously clean also makes good sense for similar reasons.

Cheers

Rod

same problems here: no more dvd reading.
Specs:
HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N:
Firmware Revision: AP12

Hi All,

Add me to the list. Although by now there have been so many posts all reporting the same I figured I should still post. My specs are as follows:

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N:

Model: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N
Revision: AP09
Serial Number: K1L79EK5740
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
Low Power Polling: Yes
Power Off: Yes


Model Name: 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: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.16f11
Serial Number (system): W87440SNX91
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-001B63ABA52B
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled



Originally, over a year ago, I started to notice that while watching dvds I would get the error message "Skipping over damaged area". This message began appearing only on scratched dvd's but over time became more and more frequent even for dvd's that were brand new and flawless.

Anyway over the last 6 months I really have not been using the drive much at all. After a period of not using the drive at all for a couple of months I had the need to burn some files to a dvd. The blank dvd would not be recognised, it would be accepted, I could hear it spinning up a bit, then it would be ejected. So I put it down to a cheap dvd-r and left it at that. I tried again a few months ago with the most expensive dvd-r that I could find. Still same problem. At this present moment I cannot seem to get it to recognise any blank media, or any dvd at all. Music CD's seem to be fine though.

I have tried just about all of the solutions in this thread, bar actually pulling the drive out and cleaning the lens, to no avail. I am very hesitant to rip it out and give it a clean as (1) I just don't have the time to spare to actually get around to it and (2) I am worried that the act of me pulling it apart may cause another (more serious) problem. Can I just say that I am shocked at how many people are having the same problem! I started reading the thread thinking "oh yeah cool, this is the same problem" so I read on hoping that eventually somewhere along the line there would be a solution. Every time I clicked next the page numbers just kept going up and up and up! haha. I Could not believe that after more than an hour of reading posts that a solution has not been found and more to the point I CANNOT BELIEVE the way Apple are handling this.

This is my first ever Mac and to be honest, wow, loving it. This one issue is not going to turn me away from Apple products. I will maintain that I am currently a user of both Mac and PC. I'm yet to try Windows 7 but have heard wonderful things about it but I will be using both PC and Mac for some time (side effect of being a web developer).

While typing this it just occurred to me... You know how the new MacBook Air's have no optical drive and a lot of reviews are calling the decision a step in the direction of advancement in technology. I have a feeling that Apple just realised that they just cannot get the optical drives right in their MacBook range that they decided to just remove it completely and disguise it with clever marketing... Conspiracy theory? I reckon it's quite likely a very clever business decision.

by today i experience the same problem...
my mbp's dvd drive won't recognize any blank dvd's but has no problem reading blank cds , or any written media....

i am very very frustrated realizing that there are 37 pages on this........

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:

Firmware Revision: DA09
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO

37 pages of apple ignored users...

Answer this one brainiacs, my superdrive on my three month out of warranty 24in imac spins and spits almost 95% of the media I insert to burn or read. I can't use that joke of a disc cleaner although I've tried it numerous times... as well as canned air cleaning.

Yet my lame, scratched 2002 copy of medal of honor dvd reads just fine whilst the newest crispiest cleanest dvds I try to insert are again spit out in no time.

The new media certainly reads on the cheap a@@ $65.00 samsung dvd player/burner I had to buy to use my 1year +3 mos. old imac.

Explain please... does the old dvd clean the lens as it spins???

I get the pay extra $$$ for the security of hardware repair marketing angle. I just feel companies should live up to the quality standards they profess and I am more than disillusioned at apple's lack of consumer sensitivity from L O Y A L ... 37 pages of users with basically the same problem. It's not going away and will continue to grow. And people will remember the next time they need a computer.

Pardon the sarcasm but this is more than a dirty lens issue; but by all means do keep trying that spinning lens cleaner...

regards to the group,
steve

ambropoetica wrote:
Yet my lame, scratched 2002 copy of medal of honor dvd reads just fine whilst the newest crispiest cleanest dvds I try to insert are again spit out in no time.

Commercial video DVDs have a lot of redundancy built in , Steve. Error checking processes that cope with far worse mangling of the encoded information than burnt discs can ever deal with. An old 2002 disc may have even more tolerance. It is probably a single layer disc, for example.

The new media certainly reads on the cheap a@@ $65.00 samsung dvd player/burner I had to buy to use my 1year +3 mos. old imac.

Yes. Tray loading drives are generally much more tolerant than slot loaders and a new drive is unlikely to have got grubby yet!

If I were you, as far as your Mac drive is concerned, I'd try a better disc cleaner!

Optical drive problems are rife throughout the computer world. It is far from a perfect medium. You bung a data critical piece of plastic exposed to the outside world into something that has critical needs for purity to function reliably.

Last time I looked a Google on "Dell DVD drive problems" pulled up more than 18 million hits! Slot loaders (commonly fitted to Apples, but also used in many other laptops these days) , undoubtedly , get dirtier quicker than tray loaders and are harder to clean when they do.

Sorry, but sarcasm (pardonable or otherwise) isn't going to fix this issue in any computer. A drive cleaning disc (or more difficult manual cleaning processes) will work for some and not for others. If it doesn't work, then your options are to either replace the drive or buy an external, whatever brand of computer you happen to be using.

None of this stuff is rocket science. I personally suspect the issue will be rendered irrelevant before too long by the increasing use of "solid state" memory - heck the price of an 8 Gig USB drive or SD card will soon be as low as a DL DVD the way things are going, takes up far less room for shipping, has no moving parts, is far less susceptible to problems occasioned by the local environment or user abuse, and requires a far simpler, and smaller, piece of "play back" machinery than a spinning platter of plastic! DVD's days are numbered at best. My own guess is that they will seem as old fashioned as a 10" floppy for any purpose within a very few years. All of those video shops could save a heck of a lot of space if their movies were on contained on SD cards rather than DVDs, and I sure as heck could save a lot of shelf space!

In the mean time, though, when your drive stuffs up you have the choice of trying to clean it or buy a new drive. When it comes to the impact on my wallet I know which I'd be inclined to try first, "brainiac" or otherwise!

Cheers

Rod

Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

Just got my MBP back AGAIN AGAIN, as described here, here and here. This time, the replacement was successful!

Instead of receiving yet another HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N rev.AP09 drive, this time I was given a Matshita drive:

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-857E:

Model: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-857E
Revision: ZA0E
Serial Number:
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
Low Power Polling: Yes
Power Off: Yes

IT WORKS PERFECTLY!!!

Since the new replacement HL drive was also DOA, I suggest anyone still on AppleCare warranty to request a Matshita drive replacement before wasting time with a disk cleaner/canned air strategy.

Cheers,
RC