MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-868 not working

You are not going to believe this answer to the broken Optical Drive that was hardly used. I went to the Genius bar in White Plains, NY and was told I need a new Optical Drive for a mere $120. I could not do it, the drive was just used to install Office for Mac. I read Rimmer2000's answer and thought that was a very good, but VERY, VERY complicated proceedure. I thought back to when the dealer of my car tried to rip me off by suggesting the dealer sell me a new seat and install it for $900. The motors to operate the seat adjustments were not working. Well, we all know by now to check fuses and wire connectivity before assuming the motors are "worn out". I did that and replaced every fuse that operated the seat. Yes, I fixed my $900 problem with a $3.00 fuse.

What does this guy mean about car seats? How will this fix my broken drive ? Just tell me how to fix my hardly used DVD Drive?

Are you ready for the solution............

Carefully, blow compressed/canned air into the disc "slot" to clean off the optical lens of dust. YES, IT WORKED AND I CAN NOW WATCH DVDs!!!

Shame on Apple for not even doing this at the Genius Bar!!!!! The Apple of Tim Cook will pick your pockets, if you let them, but the Apple under Steve Jobs understood the "School of hard knocks" and Horatio Alger. RIP in peace Steve.

Oh, I do accept charitable contributions for my kid's college tuition.LOL

No worries. I'm glad it worked for you..!

I just wanted to say regarding the message above yours. Using compressed air has a reasonable chance of working but the idea of simply waving around an airline or even a canister of air through the DVD slot worries me. Air lines are obviously/potentially very powerful and I would highly recommend nobody uses one of those.

From a background of using canned air many times, for electronic cleaning jobs, there is a much better chance that you wont blow off a connector or bend anything (there are some very delicate ribbon connectors in there) but I still recommend dismantling the machine as described. It's seriously not too taxing and you can treat the area that needs treating rather than blowing the offending dirt around the drive mechanism. Better to remove it from the machine altogether.. Glad that worked for you though.. 😎

Hi figiazziIta

You're italian, I guess. Could you by any chance help me out with this procedure? The thought of opening up my MBP is freaking me out, but I really need to get it fixed asap.

Grazie in anticipo!

Federica

Here's a link for a video that helped me fix the MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-868 optical drive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlZD1Nq9JiY

Disclaimer: the video tells you how to REPLACE it, not FIX it. For this extra step, you'll have to remove a few screws on the drive itself and (carefully) separate the botton and top halves. Then, with a cloth made for cleaning eyeglasses, gently clean the laser lense. (As Rimmer says, "like washing a fly's back.")

Again, you can get small screwdrivers and pry tools at an electronics store to help you with this. You need to be especially careful removing the optical drive plug from the logic board so as to not damage the plug or the board. Besides cleaning the lense, this is probably the most delicate part. If after reinstalling, the drive still does not read your DVDs, then you've got a bigger problem.

Hope for the best outcome and give it a shot!

Thanks so much for this knowledge, Rimmer, Jerry. I had tried cleaning the lens with discs last night which only made the problem worse. I decided I had nothing to lose and this took me 45 minutes, going slowly.

The two smaller screws holding the drive can be tedious to get back in. Wipe gently as you would with any delicate optical equipment and you'll have no problem. My drive was connected to the circuit board with a brownish ribbon connector only, no SATA connection as Rimmer mentioned.

I had the same problem: drive trying to read a cd or dvd, and spitting it out after a couple of tries. I took the optical drive out, opened it, cleaned the lense and the mechanical parts (leaving and adding even some grease), put it in again. It worked,... for about two days. Took it out again, opened the optical drive, took off the cover around the moving lense part, cleaned it, then discovered that the flat ribbon cable attached to the lense sledge was moving strangely. Decided to take off part of the black back cover of the drive (a kind of plastic sheet) to get near to the ribbon cable plug. That was it, the cable was loose. I stuck it back in again (thought about adding a scotch tape to keep it from moving in the future, but then decided to try without it). Put the black plastic sheeting back on again and fixed it with some tape, put the whole thing back together and hallelluja, everything worked perfectly. good luck, and don't loose one of this really small screws!

One thing I have to say about this superdrive issues:

mine just stopped working 9 month after I got my (late 2009) macbook pro; went to a Mac dealer and used the waranty to have it replaced and it was.

4 month later, not covered by the waranty anymore, that "new" superdrive just stopped working.

I gave up. I use an external eversince.

4 years later:

Right now at the office I work, 3 persons use Macbook pros: none of their superdrives work: they're all dead.

Apple never did a thing about this.

Now here's the best: I went to another Official Mac dealer/fixer: when I mentionned that multiple issue with superdrives in macbook pros his infatuated answer was : "well you know, it's hardware..." 😠 ...

meaning ....!????

The dude just wanted to make me understand you don't want to expect Apple to be good at hardware cause they're so good at all the rest !!!!

Couldn't believe it !!! That machine is worth 1600€ over here !!! And you're just supposed to be happy with that kind of bull...t explanation ????

So voilà: to you all: have a good time with your "super" drives cause they're junk. I ran many laptops for 20 years; this only happened to me with Mac and apparently I'm very far from being the only one.

Hi there

I faced the exact same issue with my DVD reader MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-868. I've read a lot of posts about this problem. Before applying the ultimate option opening my MBP to cleanse the laser lens I decided to follow a very clever, simple, wise advice I catched as well: Remove any dust with compressed air

- I went to the garage station

- I've used a needle, the one to inflate football ball, and placed it at the end of the air pipe

- I've inserted the needle into the slot of the DVD player

- I've carefully move it from right to left and reversely

and...IT WORKS again

very cheap, very efficient, riskless

Hope you can experience the same success.

This worked, despite my deep scepticism Apple had somehow trashed the drivers with an OS update.

Managed to even get it done with a set of flat head, non-magnetic screwdrivers, though this was cavalier and would not advise making your life as difficult as I did!

(MBP 15" Mid 2009, 2.53Ghz, OS X Yosemite 10.10.5)

You may need to have the optical drive replaced. Take it to an Apple store or AASP.

This has just happened to me too - is there any confirmation this is from a software update?

A fix was found - replace the superdrive. The genius' said it was probably some other program (geektool or nocturne) causing it - which it definitely wasnt. So, long story short, buy applecare.

Thank you Rimmer, It works also for my late 2008 MacBook Pro.

Ciao,

A.

You my friend are a genius. Thank you for bothering to write that all up. peace

Thanks Rimmer this worked for my MBP 2009 unibody too - whoever said buy a new drive should consider peoples pocketbooks

Thanks you saved me about 80 bucks plus installation