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

I agree with your summation of Apple's tech support - with more than 700 posts and 14 thousand views of this thread alone - one of several on this subject, it's ludicrous of a tech to say they are unaware of this problem. Are they living in a cave in Afghanistan??

But I disagree it is connected to the 10.6.3 upgrade. My first drive crapped out within a month or so of purchase back in April of 08 - it had problems almost right out of the box. The warranty replacement drive then died about a month after my 1-year warranty expired. I've tried every potential solution noted here except for opening and cleaning the laser eye myself - all to no avail.

I doubt that I'll ever by another new Mac. I can get good quality used ones on ebay and elsewhere so when they crap out I don't loose near the investment. If Apple were in the car business, the government would have mandated a recall to fix this problem. AS it is, they stick their heads in the sand. And please don't tell me again about how all slot loading drives are suspect. I don't care. I do not and will not own a Windows machine. I bought Apple, the Apple has a worm and Apple should fix it, Period.

I'm surprised to see this thread going, and going and, going... I started commenting on this last year.
I'm not surprised to see Apple's indifference to this issue. They care enough to let the little users comment and complain and such; but that's all. And poor Rod has borne the brunt of most of it almost cheerfully.

Point being Apple cares, but only so much. I concur that my superdrive problems started after an OS update. And my drive behaves strangely... rejecting certain new dvd and cd media whilst reading (some) of my oldest scratchiest c.d.'s.

The fact is Apple has just the market they want, and until a PC satisfies the market better we're dancing with the date we bought.

I used to love my mac and the manner in which it accomplishes my tasks; still do sometimes, but when I think of this thread and Apple's attitude, it's just a machine.

Thank you for the info, this resolved my dvd drive issues!

Cheers

JS

Yep same problem here for about 8 or 9 months now same drive HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N: does anyone know if replacing the drive helps because the mac store wants $250.00 to replace it. I do not want to replace it if it's just going to go out again I will buy an external at a fifth of the price.

jmachael, that's B.S.

Here's what you do,
A. Tell them that the Drive stopped working upon your upgrade.
B. Show them, in the store, this thread.

After I did that I was offered a New disc AND ribbon for $160, they said they would test/replace the ribbon first because that would be pretty cheap, the the Superdrive.

But in my case, it turned out to be the Logic Board. Unique but I still am not convinced.

Good luck.

Just wanted to add, every MBP I have owned the drive has died within the first year. Every one.

Well, don't let anyone tell you spraying compressed air into the drive is a good thing (I read it in one of these threads). Now my drive won't work at all. When I pop in a disc, it makes a strange noise, and then spits it back out.

So: Do Not Spray It With Compressed Air!!
Now I have a useless drive. Great. Just great.

(Edit) And, oddly enough, it started 'working' again... not for all disks though, so this still wasn't a fix. It still can't read most discs. But at least it stopped spitting them out right away. Very strange. Anyway, compressed air doesn't do anything good for it, so don't try that.

Message was edited by: Thinking_Different

Same thing happening to me.

I bought an international DVD and it just arrived. I've tried to play it several times and got nothing but clicks and weird sounds followed by ejection. My other DVDs and CDs work fine.

How come Apple won't respond to such a huge thread in its official forums? There are hundreds of people with the same problem!

Apple practically never responds here.

I have had the same problem yesterday. It was simply the disc who was a bit bent. Luckily it didn't broke the player.

Matthieu

Message was edited by: Pagaille

Same here. Can't wait till I get rid of this piece and get a Dell.

I have the same problem all of a sudden. Apparently, more than 100,000 people do too. Is there no solution?

Well.....after reading 48 pages of woes....I did not have much hope for my situation. Also after 157,000 + views, I felt better it wasn't my computer mojo causing the problem....
I have the HT-DL-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N..on a MBP about 2 years old
I did the following;
1. Did the Disk Permissions repair (you should really do this at least once a month), and the very last line of the disk repair said there were problems with the permissions being incorrect.
(didn't work...some DVD's (those previously viewed) would work, while others gave you hope by making various sounds....and then just when you thought is was safe to watch DVD's again, your hopes would be dashed by the ejecting disk.)

2. Did the canned air...with some slight trepidation..
(got one recalcitrant disk to work, many others did not)

3. Canned air again...feeling bolder now
(got two more to work, now brand new DVD's also work)

4. Canned air again....I know no fear
(several more work, and now others start working)

5. Got a CD/DVD cleaner kit.....watch out
Another shot of canned air....time to get another six-pack
Now everything works....at least for the last 10 minutes....

Can't say for how long, can't say that Apple shouldn't have stepped in by now...but for the luck few these progressive steps may work......

May the DVD force be with you...

YES! I am not the only one!
Im glad mine is only 5 months old - still under warranty, right? i hope so.

I'm taking it to repair to see what the guys have to say about this error.

I bought my Macbook 3 weeks ago, and I haven't been able to read any dvds or cds =/ They show up as blank disks or just spin around and get kicked out again.

Since it's so new, I doubt it's a problem with the SuperDrive and must be something wrong with the new snowleopard software.