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

For what it's worth for anybody (maybe it will help someone with this irritating problem), after installing Snow Leopard, superdrive would not recognize blank dvd's..... this computer is used daily pretty hard; so it only made sense to disassemble and clean the drive before going down the firmware road and/or accepting the drive was bad. After cleaning drive with canned air, and cleaning laser, the drive now recognizes blank dvd's and mounts. Go figure.......... I have read there are plenty of theories as to why this is happening, but cleaning the drive worked in this specific case. Worth a try, instead of running out and getting a new drive right off the bat.

*use a disc drive cleaning disc!

hi everyone

i was having a problem many of you have mentioned: my drive would read audio cds, but not dvds.

i suspected it was a software issue, since if the drive was broken, how could it be reading audio cds?

so i reset the pram and the main memory and ran cocktail to repair permissions....nothing seemed to work

so someone on this thread suggested one use a disc cleaner cd....i went downstairs to the kinkos in our office building and bought one from scotch for $10.

holy crap, it worked! i can't believe it. i was afraid i would have to buy a whole drive.

the cleaner cd just has these little tiny tiny brushes on it. it sounds crazy, but when you run the cd, it moves the optical head back and fourth over the brushes for about 5 minutes. this gives the lens a good scrubbing, and in my case, fixes the problem.

what i suspect happened was that there was some gunk on my drive lens, but only a tiny bit of gunk. it is easier to read an audio encoding than a dvd, so, the lens was able to make sense of the audio information, but could not get a strong enough read on the dvd, until the lens was cleaned.

really, try this. it costs $10, and it absolutely worked for me. been without my dvd drive for 6 months, and am so stoked to have it back.


thanks for the pointer

justin

yep, tellous.

Cleaning can get a remarkable percentage of superdrives running again, though you sometimes need to be persistent (It won't fix everyone's problem but it does fix a lot).

I personally think Apple are their own worst enemy on this issue. THey replace many, many drives under warranty and Applecare that are simply dirty, and don't recommend the use of cleaning discs. As I've said earlier in this thread I've been using them regularly since my first "slot loader iMac G3 in 2000 and every one of the slot loading drives that I still look after, from that old iMac to my current model MBP, is still working. In that mix you can include the old iMacG3 , an iBook G4 (just parted company with on eBay) , a PB12 (parted with a year or so back) , an iMac G5, two MBs (one of which was the earliest model) and two MBPs. I've been using cleaning discs monthly or thereabouts on them, never had a problem with them getting stuck in a drive, never done "damage" as a result (hey, all these drives still work!) etc etc.

The trick, if possible, is to "get in early". Once a drive won't even read a CD it is usually too late, and even if you have reached the point where a single layer DVD is hard to burn it will often take a few rounds of cleaning to get it running again. But once you do, (and preferably before) a bit of "preventative maintenance" works wonders.

But I'd like to see Apple get pro-active about this stuff and take a look at developing some recommended optical drive maintenance processes and schedules, etc. I'm sure they would cop far, far less flack about "SuperDrive Problems" if they did so!

Cheers

Rod

I am going to try the CD cleaner option.

It's funny that my Superdrive would sometimes load DVDs, it loaded the iWork '09 and iLife 09 installer DVDs. But it still won't play or load any other DVDs like movies or data DVDs.

My OS is now 10.5.8, it is possible it is not a software problem but just a matter of dirty drive. Here's hoping the cleaning will fix it.

Add Mine too... I have a (see below) and I can burn CDs and DVDs, and sometimes read CDs, But not reading DVDs at all.... SO SUCKY!!!

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N:

Firmware Revision: AP12
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, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

This works!

I tried this rude procedure.

Abakitty wrote:
After having suffered from this problem for months, yesterday I very reluctantly decided that I had to buy a new optical drive, and while online happened to stumble across a forum I hadn't seen before. As a result of their posts, I took a lens cleaning cloth, wrapped it around a piece of thick paper stock, and (with the computer off) wiggled it around in the slot in a faintly obscene manner. As they mentioned that the lens is to the far left, I used a square piece rather than the old CD I pulled out.

My optical drive works again. Not sure for how long, but I'm very happy and relieved for the time being.

Due to the lack of a lens cleaning cloth i took an old (tidy) boxer-short, trimmed it to the double-size of the cardboard i was using, wiggled it around and attached it with sellotape so it won’t slip. Additionally i moistered the upper left corner with cd-lens-cleaner-fluid.
After bumping my superdrive several minutes with this device it is working again. Finally.
If you decide to try this, don’t forget to turn your computer off!!!

Back at the end of 2009, I posted my issue with the superdrive to this thread. My symptoms were:
1) Seldom used Superdrive
2) Upgraded to Snow Leopard
3) tried to use a CD but would not work (the lack of error message was frustrating)
4) DVDs worked fine

After keeping up with this thread, I went out and purchased a CD cleaning disk. I had to use it about 3 times before it seemed to show improvement, but now I can read CDs again.

Well, I didn't hold much hope for fixing my non-reading SuperDrive with a disc cleaner BUT darn if it didn't work!
My drive stopped loading DVD's that I had burned and reading this forum I thought either the drive was toast or the OS was the culprit. The disc was readable on a Windows PC (It's a DVD with Windows XP Based Photoshop art files I created for Flight Simulator) so I knew the disc was O.K. I have a Mac at work with Panther loaded so I popped the disc in and BAM!, the disc loaded, so I had another data point indicating that the SuperDrive or the OS was at fault.
Buying a cleaning disc was the next step to try, so going to my local S-Mart I found a Phillips combo cleaning kit and popped the disc into the drive.
After the disc popped up on the desktop, iTunes opened briefly then the disc unmounted itself. Not thinking much had happened I put my unreadable DVD into the drive and it mounted and I could read all of the data present. I switched over to Boot Camp and the disc loaded on the Windows side too!
If you're having issues with your drive give the cleaning disc a go, it might work for you too!

I have the same problem with my "HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N" drive. Burning DVDs has become a nightmare. It only works in 1 out of 5 and it get's worse. Reading or ripping CDs is also a problem and fails very often. I feel that there is a connection to the upgrade to Snow Leopard because I did not experience the problem while using Leopard. I will buy a cleaning CD and hope that it helps if not I guess I'll go to the Apple store and have the drive exchanged...

Hi.

I had the sale problem. After a couple of seconds of trying to burn a DVD, the error code 0x8002006E came up.

I tried all the software solutions - nothing worked.

Then... a few blasts of compressed air directly into the drive.

Bob's your uncle... problem instantly solved.

Hope it works for others.

Well, I took the plunge and after repeated cleaning failed, I replaced my drive with a Samsung x22 Super Writemaster, which is a better drive than the one it replaced. It works great - so far I've tested it with DVDs and also written to it through the Finder, and everything worked OK. Trouble is, when it's burning, it's very noisy. Is this likely to settle down, or should I reset the PMU in case it's throwing too much power at the fans?

My MBP's drive also worked perfectly until I installed Snow Leopard (about a month ago)....then it just stopped working and doing exactly what yours is doing. I did the updates right away, too, so who knows.

I made an appt with the Genius' at Apple Store. Right away, the guy put in a disc and it spit it out. He said "it'll bee $275 to replace the drive". I explained that there were plenty of people having the exact same issue on the Apple discussions page. He just blew it off and said "drives go bad all the time...it's just a coincidence". It sure sounds like they had a store meeting and that was the answer they were supposed to give without admitting guilt. This *****. If I was alone or a rare occurrence, I wouldn't worry much about it and just pay for a new drive. But I smell a rat here....

Have you tried a cleaning disc, itmsjim?

Cheers

Rod

lens cleaner workaound did the trick! My Superdrive is alive and kicking again!

Add me to the list. Got my first MacBook Pro almost a year ago. From day 1 DVDs were ejected or applications on DVDs failed to install. I'd wipe the disc and try again, sometimes three or more times, but eventually it would take. 90% of the applications I install are downloaded so after getting some mission critical applications installed like Adobe Master Collection, I rarely used the drive. On some recent work, I needed to play video DVDs and discovered that most wouldn't recognize or the system would say it was skipping over damaged areas. Then it just stopped recognizing application DVDs. Days away from the end of my hardware warranty, but Apple serviced it for free. However, I got the system back today and began installing software from DVDs (Apple's original DVDs for that matter) and it failed to recognize, made some unfamiliar click hums and ejected. Sure hope Apple fixes this problem right, I can't afford to be without my production system for more days.