Unable to burn to blank DVD's

Question

Level 1

36 points

Unable to burn to blank DVD's

Hi there

I have a problem with my internal SuperDrive where it is saying that blank DVD's are not writable. When I insert a blank disk the Mac recognises it is a blank disc as the Blank DVD Options box appears but when I actually go to burn a disk the burn will start then immediately fail saying the disk isn't writable. From Disk Utility I get the following info from a blank disk:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J:

Firmware Revision: FEW7

Interconnect: ATAPI

Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)

Cache: 2048 KB

Reads DVD: Yes

CD-Write: -R, -RW

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

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

Media

Type: DVD-R

ID: CMC MAG. AM3

Blank: No

Erasable: No

Overwritable: No

Appendable: Yes

Write Speeds: 2x, 4x, 8x

It doesn't matter what brand of disk I buy (have tried Verbatim, Bulkpaq, Sony, Tesco & Asda) I get the same issue. All these disks have then worked fine in my girlfriends PC (yuk!) laptop so I don't think it is the disks themselves that are at fault and the fact it is happening with different brands points to a problem with the drive rather than the disks. The drive seems to be working ok as it will play DVD's ok.

Has anyone else come across this problem? Any and all help is appreciated.

John

Mac Mini (MA608B/A) Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz 2 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Mar 14, 2012 4:19 AM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

85,608 points

Mar 14, 2012 6:30 AM in response to jonty1512

Make sure your PRAM battery is under 4 years old.

See if you don't possibly need a disk cleaner. There are multiple heads for multiple functions. It is possible the head got dirty.

Try an external DVD burner from http://www.macsales.com/ as this will eliminate any possible software issues.

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Answer 2

Mar 14, 2012 6:37 AM in response to jonty1512

I believe optical drives use different components for all the combinations of read or write, CD or DVD, so it is possible for one part to fail and the others still work.

Optical cleaning disc as suggested elsewhere is the easiest and moderate cost thing to try, but it will only help if dust is the issue.

You can try: Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964 though I have mostly read about this helping where the whole drive failed to work.

Frankly you may have a bad component on the drive and your only option will be to get another drive, and the external option suggested by "a brody" may be cheapest, especially if you are not into working inside a computer.

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Answer 3

jonty1512 Author

Level 1

36 points

Mar 17, 2012 9:22 AM in response to Limnos

I have made some progress

It seems it was the discs after all. All the media I was trying to burn were 16x discs which are the normal standard these days but after chatting to a friend on Twitter who suggested I get hold of some older 8x discs which specifically use the Taiyo Yuden GO2 dye which were the standard when my Mac Mini was made. Success!!! So it seems that it is a case of the Mac Mini being very fussy as to which discs it will write to. Thing is it is very difficult to know which dye is used in the discs when they are on the shelves in your local store.

Thanks for all the useful advice. Much appreciated.

John

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