superdrive won't draw discs in

Same problem - now solved. Quick answer - Open Terminal and type the command drutil tray eject

Our 2009 iMac, running High Sierra, had a Superdrive that was totally unresponsive. It would not accept disks, even if they were pushed in to the point where the springy resistance is felt, when they are about three quarters of the way in. Pushing them all the way in, against the spring pressure, had no effect. The disks would be pushed out by the mechanical spring force, but the Superdrive was dead.

First, I did a System Management Controller (SMC) reset, by Shutting Down and then disconnecting the power cord from the back of the computer for a minute or so. Apple website says to allow 15 seconds. Plug the cord back in and start up. We noticed that the laggy behaviour of the iMac in general went away, which was excellent - point to remember! However, the Superdrive did not start working.

Next, I tried a PRAM reset, by holding down Command+Option+P+R at startup. The first time I did this, the iMac booted into a recovery drive. Weird. Shut down and restarted and did the PRAM reset again, five times in a sequence. No change to the Superdrive problem. Still completely unresponsive.

I googled and found suggestions to try Terminal commands, to make the Superdrive go through some ejection sequences. The command drutil eject did nothing, but then I found a suggestion to try drutil tray eject . Upon pressing Enter to run that command, I heard a click from the Superdrive. I put in a disk, it sucked it in, recognised it as a DVD, fired up DVD Player and started playing the movie. Fixed! :-)

Try restarting your system to power cycle the optical drive. It may resolve the issue.

Pull down the Apple Menu and select 'About This Mac', then click on the 'More Info' button. Since you are running Lion you'll then click on the Ssytem Report option which should bring up a window listing the features of your system. On the left hand column in the Hardware section click on the 'Disc Burning' section and report what information shows up. If no info is presented then this would indicate that the optical drive is offline, disconnected, or has some sort of issue.

If the optical drive is visible then the system is communicating with the drive. You've already tried power cycling your system which didn't resolve the issue. The next step would be to launch the Disk Utility application located in the Applications/Utilities folder, click on the optical drive (called SuperDrive in Disk Utility), and then click on the eject button to see if you can get the drive to perform an eject cycle to reset the drive.

How far are you able to insert the disc? Does it feel like it is hitting anything solid when it won't go in any further?

My superdrive also stopped working this morning. I have a 2011 MacBook Pro. Did a system update this morning. Drive stopped working after that. I have performed all the steps that you illustrated earlier in this thread. My superdrive will take the disc in and then spit it out 5 seconds later. It is grayed out in my disk utility. Please help! I need to burn stuff for school! Here is the info on my drive.

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-898:

Firmware Revision: HE13

Interconnect: ATAPI

Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)

Cache: 1024 KB

Reads DVD: Yes

CD-Write: -R, -RW

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

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

Media: To show the available burn speeds, insert a disc and choose View > Refresh

Is your SuperDrive partially functional? You drive will at least accept the media, then eject it a few seconds later. Do you hear the drive spin up during that 5 second period? If not then that would indicate a problem with your optical drive that will require repair.

Have you tried inserting a previously burned CD and then a DVD to see if one or both formats can still be read? Sometimes one format will continue reading even though the other can't be read. The same can be true for writing to media. If yur're unsuccessfully trying to write to a CD and can't, then try a DVD. It may allow you to burn stuff for your school project until you can get your system repaired.

I have the same problem. My disk will go all the way in but never grabs, to the point where i have to do the eject function in the termail window to get it to spit it far enough back out to grab it. I have treid re start, manual eject, everything. Disk just goes all the way in and never grabs

i tried a already burned dvd and it read it. then i pur in another blank cd and it read it. dont understand why it was spitting them out before.

I was hoping there would be a resolved issue for this. I am with you up to this point - 13" MBPro, mid-2009. My super drive will NOT accept media. It is empty. I have stuck a credit card in to double check. There seems to be a hard object blocking it from going in more than 1". The About This Mac steps reveal the drive is communicating with the computer, but Disk Utility is showing the SuperDrive in light gray and I am unable to repair permissions or do anything else.

I have reset my PRAM. I have reset the SMC. I have tried the drutil eject method in command. Nothing seems to work.

When the computer is turned on/wakes, there are no sounds to indicate the drive is functioning. The error occurred after ejecting media a while ago, then spontaneously resolved itself, then repeated. The computer is out of warranty; I will not be bringing it in to any professional because I simply do not have the money for anything of that nature.

All I am hoping for is some sort of home-brew solution to get a CD in for burning purposes. Please advise!

If you don't want to take your system in for repair there may be lower cost workarounds such as this:

External CD/DVD Disc Burner

If the link doesn't work in your country just search for 'mac compatible external cd/dvd burner'.

I had the same problem, and I have either just fixed it or the magic superdrive fairies helped me out...

I reset the SMC, then I entered terminal and typed the drutil eject command... didn't seem to help, then I put a dvd in as far as it would go (about 1/2 way) and then did drutil eject and out it popped. Now accepting Disks fine.

Maybe that will help. Had been driving me nuts for weeks...

I am having the same issue I was able to insert CDs and DVDs previuously and no I cannot. I have an early 2011, 13-inch MacBook Pro. I am now running 10.7.4 for the OS. When I pull the info on my drive this is what I get:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-898:

Firmware Revision: HE13

Interconnect: ATAPI

Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)

Cache: 1024 KB

Reads DVD: Yes

CD-Write: -R, -RW

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

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

Media: To show the available burn speeds, insert a disc and choose View > Refresh

When I go to the Serial-ATA info on hte same screen I get:

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898:

Model: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898

Revision: HE13

Serial Number: UL21 200BBX

Native Command Queuing: No

Detachable Drive: No

Power Off: Yes

Async Notification: No

I am not sure if this means anything but Power Off says yes here.

I can actually insert a disc all the way into the drive without it grabbing at all, to get it out I have to grab the disc by its very edge and pull it out.

Any help would be appreciated.

I was having the same problem with disc going in about half way and feeling like it was hitting something. I tried all suggestions but nothing worked until this. This did the trick:

gravitas41 wrote:

I had the same problem, and I have either just fixed it or the magic superdrive fairies helped me out...

I reset the SMC, then I entered terminal and typed the drutil eject command... didn't seem to help, then I put a dvd in as far as it would go (about 1/2 way) and then did drutil eject and out it popped. Now accepting Disks fine.

Maybe that will help. Had been driving me nuts for weeks...

I had tried using the "drutil eject" command before but it did not work until I put a disc in as far as it would go. That was the key, to run the command with the disc hanging out of the drive. Once I did that the drive attempted an eject and everything was reset and working.

Thanks!!!!!