OPTICAL DRIVE DISAPPEARING

Question

Level 1

4 points

OPTICAL DRIVE DISAPPEARING

It's been a while since anyone posted on this, but I have had this issue across multiple Macs on multiple OS's. After a while the optical drive vanishes.... from System Profiler, desktop, etc. Toast won't re-discover it either. Hitting the EJECT icon on-screen or on the keyboard accomplishes nothing, just shows the eject icon briefly on-screen. I seem to remember at some point I could get it back in Terminal with a root command but I don't recall what I did and can't find any info online. I am curious if it's related to sleep, a reboot always fixes it initially but only for a while. Currently on a Mac Pro, iMac with Mojave.

Mac Pro, OS X 10.10

Posted on Jan 1, 2020 12:15 PM

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Answer 1

DonH49

Level 6

16,716 points

Jan 1, 2020 2:01 PM in response to geofbuck

don't know the cause but I'd at least try these two counter measures:

SMC reset https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Zap pram https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

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Answer 2

MrHoffman

Level 10

151,071 points

Jan 2, 2020 2:57 PM in response to geofbuck

Post the EtreCheck, please? Download, run, open a reply here, press the button that looks like a printed page and you’ll get a text input box large enough to paste the hardware and software configuration report here. This on the off chance that there’s something both odd and common across your configuration.

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Answer 3

MrHoffman

Level 10

151,071 points

Jan 2, 2020 6:09 PM in response to geofbuck

Again, post the EtreCheck hardware and software configuration, please.

Use Safe Mode, if necessary.

If you’re getting systemic crashes with EtreCheck across multiple systems, these systems have deeper issues than the optical device. Common causes there are malware, add-on anti-malware, add-on cleaners, add-on VPN clients, and add-on network firewall apps.

Also check the firmware on that Samsung SSD, and other third-party devices present.

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

250,673 points

Jan 2, 2020 5:08 PM in response to geofbuck

Does Etrecheck work in Safe Mode?

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?

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Answer 5

MrHoffman

Level 10

151,071 points

Jan 1, 2020 2:15 PM in response to geofbuck

Same optical drive across all your tests? If so, try a different one?

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Answer 6

geofbuck Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 1, 2020 2:06 PM in response to DonH49

Thanks man, tried that before too, I should have mentioned that. Didn't work. Just rebooted and voila! fixed it. I am going to let it deep sleep and see if that breaks the optical drive. I am on my iMac currently testing this.

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Answer 7

geofbuck Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 2, 2020 4:17 PM in response to MrHoffman

I will try it on my Mac Pro. Never had much luck with that software it instantly crashes on my iMac for example with EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) as it does on my MacBook Pro. After sleep overnight on the Mac Pro I can see it in Profiler:

But when I go to eject icon:

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Answer 8

Jan 2, 2020 4:35 PM in response to geofbuck

geofbuck wrote:

...

... never had much luck with that software [Etrecheck] instantly crashes on my iMac for example with EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) as it does on my MacBook Pro.

That could be an indication you have some bogus aftermarket software, such a Virus scanner software installed on those Macs.

The general experience with Etrecheck has been rock solid. I have never seen a report of crashes.

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Answer 9

geofbuck Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 5, 2020 7:10 AM in response to MrHoffman

The SSD firmware is fine I checked it when purchased and updated it. I will post the crash log for etrecheck. I have none of that virus crap installed so that's not it for sure. It's an OS problem, I have seen this going back to my first Mac Pro 1,1 in 2004 with Snow Leopard. Personally I think it's the drive itself in this case. Make/model as it's an ASUS drive and not stock. My Pro 1,1 and my Pro 2,1 had one stock and 2nd drive put in later but both did the same thing as well with drives disappearing.

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Answer 10

geofbuck Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 5, 2020 5:31 PM in response to MrHoffman

The ASUS drive is a Blu-ray drive in this mac pro, but one of my other mac pro's (currently using as a DAW) has two drives, one superdrive and one that rips DVD-R DL as well as DVD+R DL. Currently on El Capitan. One of my other ones in my rack (PLEX server 1) has a single optical super drive. The second rack Mac Pro (PLEX server 2) has a single optical Blu-ray drive that was put in to replace a old superdrive. Server 1 runs Yosemite and the other runs Mojave. Sometimes if I opened Roxio Toast it would find it then it would be visible again in Finder, but lately only a reboot makes it come back on the ASUS one. The others are intermittent, the server Pro's never turn off but I checked them both today with an eject command and they seem ok currently.

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