DVD Drive Will Not Read + Strange Noises

My powerbook g4 will read dvds, but when i insert a cd it will not read the cd and then it will make the scary noise and grind and eventually it will eject the disk.

I'm having absolutely the same problem. Did you solve it?

Hello,

for no apparent reason either, the Superdrive of my PB12 also refuses to do anything with any disc.

Blank CDs and DVDs, burned CDs and DVDs as well as commercial CDs and DVDs won't be read or burned since yesterday. Instead, the drive produces a series of clicks I never heard before.

I thought it may have been because of the Mac OS X 10.4.4 update I have made since the last time I used the drive, but even when trying to boot from Tiger's installation DVD (by pressing the "C" button at startup), the drive emits those clicks and spits out the disc after about thirty such clicks, and the OS loads as if there hadn't been any disc in the drive.

I can't understand why the drive suddenly decided not to work ; The computer hasn't experienced any shocks or whatsoever since the last time the drive worked.

Should I get to a retailer and ask to get it fixed ?
Any of those having already posted have an answer yet ?

By the way my drive is a "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-835E" with revision number "GAN7" and I bought my computer in june 2005.

Hey guys, I know this topic hasn't been updated in a couple of months but I'm having this same problem and I'm a bit scared by it!

I bought my PowerBook in November 2004 and have enjoyed nearly 16 months of utter computing bliss. It's my first Mac, although I have used them extensively before. This computer is practically my whole life. I'm a Music Technology student and use my PB for recording and working on mixes. I'm also a photographer and run Photoshop etc. As you can imagine, I absolutely adore my PowerBook and have never had an issue with it, no crashes, glitches, strange sounds or screen issues. I'm running Tiger and keep up-to-date with my downloads and patches. I also have a Brenthaven backpack to carry my PB to university everyday and I'm especially careful with handling it! I do a lot of CD/DVD burning with the Superdrive now, a lot more than I did when I bought the computer, out of necessity.

Anyway, 3 nights ago I wanted to make a mix CD for a friend so I popped in a blank CD-R and heard a buzzing sound I've never heard before. This sound repeated again then I heard the disk begin to spin as normal, but then the buzz appeared again and the disk stopped. The buzzing sound continued about 3 more times and the disk ejected automatically. Thinking this was just a defective disk I found another and tried again. Same problem. I tried a music CD, it happened again, then again with a DVD movie. At this point I'm almost in tears. The laptop is now 4 months out of warranty and, given that this seems to be a hardware fault, will cost a small fortune to repair and involve sending it to Apple. Do you guys think it's a hardware fault too given my description? The drive (Matshita UJ-825) appears in the system profiler and disks eject automatically or after a frantic session of Eject Button pressing so I just think that a mechanism inside the drive may have slipped by a millmetre or two somehow and the whole fluidity of the drive has been upset by it. I'm no technician and I know that to remove/repair a Superdrive in a PowerBook means removing EVERYTHING else from the computer first, which I'm not prepared to do.

I'm just feeling a bit lost, I hope some of you guys can shed some light on the situation. I'm from Northern Ireland and we have one authorised Apple service provider in the whole country, luckily only 10 miles away from me, but I know that their performance record is pretty weak. The Apple Stores are over in England and out of the question. The only remaining solution seems to be sending the PB to Apple. Any idea how much that would cost in UK Sterling?

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

David

I suddenly started having this same problem. haven't played a DVD in a couple of months, so not sure when this started, but the PB hasn't been dropped, etc. I also just installed 10.4.6 last nite; not sure if this is related, either? Any thoughts, anyone?
Thanks!

I have same problem here. I'm quite worried about it too.

My superdrive is
Model: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-815A
Revision:D101

My theory for my problem is that maybe something is stuck in the drive preventing it from mounting. I know at pbfixit.com they have the manual for replacing a superdrive, I just would like to know once you get to the superdrive if you can get into it?

Sorry no solution just adding to the superdrive problems.


12" G4 Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.6) MATSHITADVD-R UJ-815A

Sorry for some reason the top portion of my last message was cut off. I having a similar problem. My disc will grab, whir, try to eject, pull back in, whir, then try to eject again, on the second attempt it will either eject successfully or be stuck until I reset the pmu and pram.

same thing for me, except screen goes black or sometimes white. Seems not good!

Why are there no actual responses to this problem on this board?

imac Mac OS X (10.4.5)

PB12 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I'm having some serious problems with the SuperDrive in my new MacBook.

These are commercial music CDs that run just fine on my cheapo CD player on my PC, but I put these CDs in and when ripping to my hard drive on my MacBook it'll get about halfway through the CD and then will pause and the drive will continue to spin and spin and spin.

This is extremely frustrating - a $1300 laptop and the only problem with it is a lame CD drive.

This is not acceptable Apple.

I have the same problem as the original poster...no solution though, it seems that we'll each have to bring our laptop in to get fixed...it look slike it's a common hardware glitch.

I just had my SuperDrive replaced by Apple, and my MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-825 won't play either factory CDs or standard DVDs. What gives, and why all of us at the same time?

I had the same problem develop a few weeks ago and now my beloved computer won't do a stinking thing with a CD or DVD other that click and spit. The other thing that I noticed at the same time is that it became more difficult to insert a disc, it felt like there was already a disc in the drive even if there wasn't.

So, can someone out the great Apple world let me, and the others on this list, know if I (we) have to turn my beloved computer over for hardware repairs, or if there is just some software glitch that is causing the drive to malfunction?



PowerBook G4, 12 Mac OS X (10.4)

im haveing the same poblems with my dvd drive to. I was in Europe and had to clear my hard drive and re install ox10.4.6

Sorry to say this but I bet 100% of these CD/DVD Drive mentioned in this thread that has this "Will Not Read" problem is caused by the Matshita branded Drives.

Is anyone in this thread having a make other than a Matshita? It should be interesting to find out.

I used to have similar issues with the Matshita drive in my mid-2004 PB 1.5Ghz. I read and scoured through many DVD forums and discovered that these Matshita drives are flaky and unrealiable in reading and burning.

So I decided about a year ago or soon after my PB was out of warranty to remove the Matshita 4x DVD superdrive (Single Layer only) out of my PB and replace it with a Pioneer DVR-K05 (Dual Layer) 8X DVD Superdrive.

Ever since I had the Pioneer in, I never experienced any issues with CD/DVD read nor burn and it's much faster as well as silent running compared to the Matshita.