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

Well as I stated, I am not covered by Apple Care. If I were, I would of had this fixed long ago. Along with the two dead pixels and bright spot in my screen.

This may have already been mentioned here but I have had the same problem.  I've used a memorex disc cleaner to clean it and it has fixed it a couple of times.  This last time I had to put in a few times before it actually accepted it.  Then I cleaned it a number of times so it would be cleaner.  So if you try a disc cleaner put it in numerous times before giving up.

http://eatmyrandom.blogspot.com/2010/06/macbook-pro-superdrive-wont-read-any.htm l

This seems to have worked for some people.

I agree. We should all start posting our issues with superdrive.

I have a similar problem. My super drive reads cd's and ejects dvd's. Fixing disk permissions didn't help...

I've fixed mine! Using a Microfiber cloth that came with my iPhone 3G (or my iPad 1, I don't remember). I slide it over a standard CD and stretched it tight. Then I slowly inserted it about half way into the drive. DO NOT let the drive try to suck the disk in. I then slowly pulled it out, shook it to get the dust off. You will see a lot of dust, this is what causes the drive to lag out or not read a disk at all. After shaking the sust off, I repeated, this time on the other side of the disk. Cleaning the top and the bottom of the drive. I then inserted Avatar, a disk I knew used to play, then wouldn't play in my Mac, and it now runs fine. I never had issues with reading software, it would just take about two minutes to recognize the disk. Now it reads it and begins playing in a matter of seconds. Thanks to the people who have pointed this out, but most of us just blew it off. If this does not work and you have Apple Care, I would reccomend taking your Mac in ASAP.

Hi

I just wanted to add my experience to this thread.

I bought a Macbook Pro, 4Gb in 2009 which worked fine for about 6 months. Then it started having problems writing CDs. It would write DvDs ok but not CDs. Later it stopped reading most DvDs after the warranty had expired.

3 months ago I took it in and got a replacement optical drive in the Apple store Glasgow (MATSHITA DVD-R   UJ-868). The first one was no improvement and I was able to demonstrate it failing immediately at the genius bar. So they replaced it again and this time it appeared to work ok (I played a DvD which previously hadn't worked and it was ok).

Now, 3 months later the whole problem has returned as bad as ever. The optical drive plays about 1 of every 3 DvDs I insert. The rest get spat out after about 3 minutes with a message saying 'please insert a readable disc in the drive'.

When I take the same DvDs that don't work in my Macbook drive and insert them in 6 year old mega-dusty el-cheapo PC drives (I've tried several), they work fine every time so this whole experience has been pretty disappointing. Add to that the fact I am a software professional so I need to use writing / reading capability in the course of my work.

Something is wrong with these drives or the infrastructure in which they are housed. I've been using Macs for 23 years now and have never had such consistently faulty performance from a hardware component.

I have more-or-less the same problem.  My super drive is MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E.  The firmware version is ZA0E.  It does not allow me to burn a DVD anymore.  It does not identify DVD movies.  I had to insert Maple 15 original installation disc as it did not recognize a copy of the software.  I managed to "clean" it using a Cyclon dvdDR disc once.  But superdrive does not recognize it anymore.  I read many postings from Mac users who had the same/similar problem before going to the "Genius" bar.  The women who had one look at my computer before declaring that the superdrive needs to be replaced.  I told her I hardly used it.  Then she decided to insult me.  She said "May be that is why it is not working as these things need to be used."  She told me that it would cost me $1** for a replacement.  I asked her how long would the new drive work?  (As you can see, I have done my homework. )  She said she cannot guarantee.  I had enough with her.  I told her I have done my research before coming to the "Genius" bar (before leaving).

I hear that Apple is very particular about quality control.  Why hasn't this problem taken care of?  I am surprised.  There has to be some resolution to this problem by now.

Add another disgruntled and disillusioned long-time Mac user to the list. I have a 2008 Intel iMac experiencing the same intermittent problems with reading both CD's and DVD's. I cannot install Snow Leopard from the Apple upgrade DVD. The disk mounts slowly but eventually allows me to start the installation process, but then aborts with instructions to clean the DVD. I also notice that the disk is hotter than it should be when I remove it.

My model is different than most of the others I have seen in the thread (although I have not reviewed all 59 pages!!!). Here is my drive information for the record: OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5630A

I thought that Apple was all about being insanely great, but it seems there must be some quality control issue here that Apple does not want to take fiscal responsibility for. The fact that the problem is being reported in SuperDrives from different manufacturers suggests that perhaps there is a problem in the component supply chain to the manufacturers.

this is happening to me... what did you do?

I am outside of the warranty, so my options are limited. I tried cleaning the drive as described in this discussion, but was still not able to read my Snow Leopard upgrade DVD. I do not use my SuperDrive often, so I am planning to use another Mac on my network with a working SuperDrive and use the Remote Install OS X application in my Utilities folder to access the remote drive over the network and install the Snow Leopard upgrade. I may eventually buy an external USB CD/DVD reader/writer if the price is right.  As I read more about Chinese factories exploding due to inadequate ventilation, and gigantic elaborate fraud schemes in the Chinese banking system, I feel more certain that this SuperDrive problem is due some unscrupulous parts supplier in China who managed to slip a defective critical component of the SuperDrive into the manufacturing chain. Apple should own up to the problem and offer a free fix to affected owners.

THIS WORKED FOR ME

1. Open Disk Utilites
2. Click on your Hard drive partition "Macintosh (or what ever you renamed yours too)"
3. Click on the *Repoir Disk Permissions* button

Repair disk permissions did not work for me.  Over the weekend I found out that the SuperDrive on my MacBook Pro is also now only working intermittently on various CD's and DVD's.  This drive was working fine until I upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.7, so now I believe that this must be a software/firmware problem that is screwing up the drives on both of my computers. Other posts have described the same problem with the 10.6.7 version of Snow Leopard. Apple is expected to be releasing a 10.6.8 update soon, primarily to address the MacDefender malware, but one can always hope that the update will also make these drives work again. It is quite surprising that Apple has been completely silent in this 59 page thread of complaints.

Exactly the same but i told you that this arrives me two times the first time only six month after the warranty begun then apple change the dvd lector without charges, no two years later the same thing begin the dvd works fine in my tower G5 but didn't work in my powerbook

H

HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GSA-S10N :

  Modèle :    HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GSA-S10N

  Révision :    AP12

  Numéro de série :    KZ08ASB5805

  Disque amovible :    Non

  Protocole :    ATAPI

  Numéro de l’unité :    0

  Type de socket :    Interne

  Scrutation de faible puissance :    Oui

  Éteindre :    Oui

I'm working on 10.5.8in a power book

MacBook Pro

  Identifiant du modèle :    MacBookPro4,1

  Nom du processeur :    Intel Core 2 Duo

  Vitesse du processeur :    2.5 GHz

  Nombre de processeurs :    1

  Nombre total de cœurs :    2

  Cache de niveau 2 :    6 Mo

  Mémoire :    2 Go

  Vitesse du bus :    800 MHz

  Version de la ROM de démarrage :    MBP41.00C1.B03

  Version SMC (système) :    1.27f3

the video card was change siw month ago!!! free

what happens with mac quality!!!!

no aswers????

Add Ramiro as another victim of the same software/hardware nightmare that has filled 59 pages with no comment from Apple. The only reason I have to re-install Snow Leopard is that my Mobileme account is not working properly since the upgrade. Now I find out that the upgrade also trashed my SuperDrive on 2 computers, so that I can not do the re-install without purchasing new hardware!!  Steve Jobs, who used to be serious about high quality control in the Macs, apparently thinks this is all a joke, as he was making fun of the problems in the Mobileme service in his iCloud speech yesterday: "Jobs says—but they brought me MobileMe, why should I believe that it just works? (laughter)".  Mr. Jobs, this is no joke! I am a paying customer who apparently was just dumb enough to renew my non-working Mobileme membership for a year (graciously extended by Apple until the end of June 2012 "at no additional cost"). Apple is moving on, and I hope iCloud does work, but that is no excuse to abandon current customers. At least the upgrade to Lion is only $29, my cheapest option so far for trying to solve this problem.

Thanks for all the answers here.

Just wanted to add that after attempting the method described using a credit card with a cloth around it I had no luck. (I used a tissue because I was impatient although I dont' think you're supposed to - its broken anyway!)

However after simply blowing in the drive with no CD the disk mounted and my mac asked my what I wanted to do with it.

Thanks again for the help. Best of luck to all of you.