my superdrive won't read a dvd-rom

Question

my superdrive won't read a dvd-rom

I am not sure what is happening or why but the superdrive doesn't seem to read a dvd-rom. Firstly when i plug it in it doesn't appear in the Finder, but it works fine when I insert a CD in it: the music app opens and correctly asks me if I want to import the audio files. Furthermore when I insert a DVD-ROM a message tells me that it doesn't read that particular disc.

Now, I checked in the system and basically it says that the action that I want my mac to perform when I insert a DVD in the superdrive is to open the dvd player: is that the problem? Of course a dvd rom is not the same thing, so I think the problem could be that I need to change the action I want my mac to perform: which one though?

It is not even the dvd rom's fault because when I tried to open it in a windows computer it worked just fine, so I really don't know what to do.

MacBook Air, macOS 13.5

Posted on Sep 20, 2023 8:31 AM

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Answer 1

JJRASC

Community Specialist

Sep 25, 2023 3:01 PM in response to Superdrivedvd

Hello Superdrivedvd,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities.

There are several troubleshooting steps you can try if your SuperDrive is not reading disks as expected.

If you are currently connecting the SuperDrive with an external display or USB hub, try to connect to a USB port directly on your Mac instead.

If the issue continues, test starting your Mac in safe mode first: Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

It is also a good idea to back up and update your Mac if you can: Update macOS on Mac.

Reply back here for more help if you are still noticing an issue.

Cheers!

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Answer 2

Sep 25, 2023 5:12 PM in response to Superdrivedvd

There's an issue I've read about in other threads, where recent versions of macOS have dropped support for the HFS filesystem. (HFS without a "+"; they handle HFS+ just fine.)

Try to use them to read a CD data disc that you formatted as a Mac disc – or as a hybrid Mac/PC disk – and they won't read it. Apparently the mere presence of HFS (which the newer version of macOS won't read) is enough to keep macOS from reading the "PC" filesystem on the disk, even though it COULD read that, if it was the only one.

I don't know if this is what is going on with your DVD data discs, because DVDs normally use a filesystem of their own called UDF.

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Answer 3

Sep 26, 2023 10:35 AM in response to JJRASC

Thank you very much for the reply. The superdrive is directly connected to the Mac. The funny thing is that the very same DVD ROM is absolutely fine when I use it as school in older windows laptops (they have windows 7 os and intel ispirion). The problem is really that it has files that in some cases are no longer supported by newer OS, a lot of them have a SWF extension and so forth.

I was able to copy some of the files, the ones that were in power point, word and was able to convert the videos in mp4. There was nothing I could do for the "ebook" and interactive exercises part of the dvd rom but at least I was able to get some of the files...

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Answer 4

Sep 26, 2023 11:05 AM in response to Superdrivedvd

I believe a .SWF file would be an Adobe ShockWave Flash file, meant to be played with Adobe Flash Player. If you do not already have a copy of that program, you may be out of luck as far as playing those particular files.

https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/kb/eol-adobe-flash-shockwave-player.html

"Shockwave player has reached end-of-life, effective April 9, 2019. Adobe will stop updating and distributing Flash Player after December 31, 2020."

They do say that they will be allowing one of their partner companies to continue distributing the Flash Player – to enterprise customers who need it. But it doesn't sound like they intend to offer it to home users ever again.

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my superdrive won't read a dvd-rom

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