Mac Mini (Early 2009) SuperDrive No Longer Reading Any Discs

Hope someone can help as I have exactly the same problem with my mid 2010 Mini 😟

This seems to be a fairly common issue. Like all mechanical parts, they can fail, especially if you use it a lot.

I hope you bought the 3 year Apple Care Protection when you bought your Mini. If not, you'll have to pay to get it replaced. If you did, great. It's covered under the warranty.

The SuperDrive in my Mac Mini failed about 8 months back. It did much the same thing your's is doing. I put in a music CD that never full loaded, got lots of clicking sounds, then the disk was ejected. After trying a few other music CDs and one video DVD and got the same thing happening with them all, I called Apple Support. After trying a few things they suggested, the guy admitted we couldn't do anything more. So, I made an appointment at the local Apple Store and they replaced it in under 30 minutes, under my Apple Care Warranty.

if there are clicks you know the drive's probably gone bad...check out my recent post...all I did was blow compressed air directly into the drive slot to clean up dust which had most likely been accumulating over the months....

Cheers,

Damien

I did actually try blowing air in my SuperDrive and found it didn't do anything for my issue. That was one of the suggestions the Apple tech gave me, but I wasn't trying to write to a disk. In my case, I just wanted the Mini to read it to play the music or the video on it. I'm certain the many clicking sounds is a clear sign the optical drive is soon going to expire.

Most things with moving parts fail eventually. Sometimes they just need minor adjustments or regular maintenance, such as blowing air in there to clean off the dust, but then, where does the dust go? It just gets moved around to another location inside, maybe still in the drive, which could make matters worse later.

Apple has made it pretty tough to get inside the Mini, but it's not impossible. I sure miss my tower that was easy to mess with inside for cleaning and parts replacement and additions. So, unless you want to take the entire thing apart and do it yourself, thus voiding any warranty you might still have, I suggest letting a certified Apple tech mess with it. It's a good idea to at least call them and log any complaints before the warranty is up. Then, if the drive does fail after the warranty is up, you can claim you contacted them about the issue earlier and they may still replace it for free. That's what I did with a keyboard that was failing on me. I had called about a week before my warranty expired but it didn't completely fail (shift keys quite working) until 2 weeks after the warranty expired. Since I had logged the complaint prior to the expiration, they were obligated to replace it.

In my case, upon inserting a disk, the drive would attempt to spin up but then would stop and start, as though the disk wasn't seated properly; next, it would begin the 20 seconds of clicking and eventually spit out the disk or the disk would get stuck inside. The first few times this happened, the disk ejected on it's own. A few weeks later it did it again, but would not eject the disk. I looked online for help and tried everything I could find. I ended up calling Apple and they gave me instructions to get the disk out and all went fine for a few more months. Then it happened again and the blasted disk just wouldn't come out. So, I called again and after trying some of the same things as before, we (Apple tech and I) came to the conclusion that the optical drive was toast. So I went to the store and, as I said before, they replaced it for free in under 30 mins.

Hope this helps.

I thought about that, too...the dust not being really driven out of the enclosure. I think that the gases used in the sort of canisters they sell at office supply stores have the effect of causing the dust to 'bunch up' due to static effects and then they are pushed to the nether regions of the drive.

In any case it would be most important to clear the lenses and laser-emitters of any dust and a few good puffs would likely do that.

In any case, it worked for my drive...I hope it works for yours, too!

Cheers!

Damien

I was having the exact same problems with my Mac Mini early 2009 superdrive (CDs and DVDs weren't mounting). And I just blew hard into the DVD slot and now the discs mount! I guess there was just dust on the lens?!

Right...think of getting rid of dust on the lens like removing dead pixels on your display.

Too many dead pixels on one's display and most are likely to 'get annoyed' anyway...

--Damien

Issue:

Mini late 2009 optical drive not reading dvds then eject

Resolution:

Chances are there is dust accumulated in the optical lense for the dvd. I simply used compressed air duster and gently sprayed through disk opening. Then optical drive was good as new. Recognized all dvds without issue.

No need to open up mac mini or none of that mess.

I would try this before spending any money.

Well that optical drive eventually failed anyway....I guess the dope finally got smoked.

The lighter elements win...the heavier ones you'll just leave alone and aside from the gases, semiconductors occupy that holy 'middle ground'.

Cheers!

--Damien

Blowing into the disc slot seems to have worked (or improved things) for me too.

My Mid 2009 mac mini was rejecting about 40% of all audio CDs inserted (with a set of immaculate, store-bought audio CDs, about 40% would get ejected after some hunting and spinning--and no error message).

The machine was very specific about which disks it would eject, too. In a boxed set of 9 CDs, for example, it would consistently eject disks 2, 4, and 6 while taking all the others on the first try (and all were in scratch-free, new-in-box condition). It was so consistent that I believed it was some sort manufacturing defect or an over-active copy protection scheme

But, with nothing else to lose, I tried blowing on the slot, almost like playing a harmonica, and now the formerly-rejected disks are mounting and ripping like they should.

Yeah really, they can get finicky like that.

I can tell you interesting stories about IT like that...but you'd rather watch '2001: A Space Odyssey', anyway. :-)

Oddly enough, Mac is about as smart as a cat (and that's pretty smart!)

Cheers!

--Damien

Blowing your own breath into a Mac SuperDrive isn't the best solution as you are likely going to be blowing in germs and humidity, possibly spit and who knows what else. It's best to use canned compressed air, which is dust-free and humidity free, and likely germ free and food free too 😁

Good point...what's even worse is that you could infect your Mac with a dreaded virus if you do that! 😝

I recommend brushing and flossing before attempting CPR on your Mac.

Well, I'll be ******! I didn't believe it would work, but I tried it, and it worked beautifully. A few shots in the drive from my DustGun and I'm back to ripping CDs.

Thanks!