Internal OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A will not burn DVDs

Question

Taylor510ce Author

Level 1

12 points

Internal OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A will not burn DVDs

I have a G5 Mac Pro, 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 6GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM Ram.

Serial No. WD-WMARW0514512

The internal disc burner is an

OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A:

Firmware Revision: 1.NC

Interconnect: ATAPI

Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)

Cache: 2048 KB

Reads DVD: Yes

CD-Write: -R, -RW

DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW

Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO

Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

But it will NOT burn ANY DVD-RW Discs. The disc sits in the drive and will not burn - it says the laser is not strong enough to burn this disc.

The disc ends up stuck in the drive and the only way to get it out is to stop work, restart with mouse button down and then it comes out.

PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE ISSUE IS - IS THE DRIVE SCREWED?????

Apple you have disappointed me, this machine is only two years old, I bought it from a colleague (end of lease) who says he has never used the drive to burn dvds as he has not had the need to (Graphic Designer).

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELPPPPPP!!!!

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 31, 2011 1:02 AM

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Answer 1

Johnb-one

Level 6

9,156 points

Sep 2, 2011 1:14 PM in response to Taylor510ce

whoa, easy there, Taylor. I have the same Mac pro as you (roughly) and I have had very few problems with my Optiarc. I've used Verbatim, Tdk, and maxell, and so far I've had about 5 bad disks out of 130 burnt. Firstly, the drive's laser lens may be dirty, try using a dvd drive cleaning disk (I think it's the one with the brushes on it). You may also wish to consider cleaning the lens yourself, I think with a long handled q-tip type thing with some isopropanol/windex*.there should be a guide out there, but you may have to shut down your mac, disconnect the drive, remove it, take off the drive's top, clean the lens manually, put the top back on, put the drive back and reconnect it, it depends. Failing that, try running disk utility, or changing your brand of dvd-rw. Between one of these things, your drive should be working better. and if none of these works, you could probably replace it with any ATAPI DVD burning drive and it ought to work. I have a 2nd burning drive in my mac pro-yanked it from a dying pc ( It's a LiteOn) and it works fine for reading and burning discs

so that should give you something to work with anyways

good luck

John B

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Answer 2

romko23

Level 2

408 points

Sep 3, 2011 12:14 AM in response to Johnb-one

The optiarc is flimsy and at best not a good drive. I had the same problems as u both had and wound up replacing the optiarc with Pioneer drives and couldn't be happier.. SOLUTION: Replace the bad optiarc drive and get pioneer.

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