External CD drive / device not recognised by MacBook Air

Question

External CD drive / device not recognised by MacBook Air

I have a 2012 Macbook Air system Catalina. I have always used an apple external cd drive to add cd music to my iTunes library with no problem. When I tried it today, the MacBook will not acknowledge the external device. The external drive does start up and whirr around but then ejects the cd I put in. I have tried restarting, using both USB ports. I have checked all sorts of things on the laptop and it seems to tell me there is no device attached. I rang Apple support and they said the machine is obsolete so cannot provide much help. It is a while since I used the external cd drive. My laptop works perfectly so would like to try and solve this issue.

MacBook Air

Posted on Nov 22, 2020 8:35 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,831 points

Nov 22, 2020 11:12 AM in response to Springsteenann

If the drive uses a removable cable have you tried a different cable?

Try the following:

How to reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

What model Mac do you have and what make and model optical drive are you using?

Hold down the Option key, go to the  menu and select System Information. Is the drive recognized in System Information under Disk Burning in the sidebar:

If you have a cleaning disc for optical drives use it.

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Answer 2

Nov 22, 2020 3:08 PM in response to Old Toad

Hi

Thank you for your response.

I will try and answer your questions.

The cable is fixed so I am unable to use a different cable

My mac is MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012) Processor 1.8 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 Memory 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

I presume the optical drive is the external cd device that I am trying to use? It is OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5630A. This information is is in the System Information under Disc burning as you suggested. Earlier on today it stated there was no device!

I do not have an optical cleaning disc

I got stuck on resetting SMC and NVRAM and PRAM - I do not know whether I have a T2 chip and didn't fully understand the instructions.

I have tried holding down the four keys suggested in the instructions but the laptop started up as normal, so not sure whether I was doing this correctly.

I've tried looking for the device in finder and launchpad but it is still not showing as being connected. I put a cd in the device and it whirred around and then ejected.

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Answer 3

Nov 23, 2020 4:20 AM in response to Old Toad

Thanks

I've tried resetting the SMC and NVRAM but the only change is Quicktime Player appears at startup. The system is still showing cd/dvd and disc burning is showing OPTIARC dvd etc is attached, but no external devices showing and optical drive is still ejecting cd's.

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