How do you get an audio CD to play on a MacBook Pro?

Hi, and thanks for getting back to me.

My settings are to open iTunes when an audio CD is inserted and in iTunes my settings are to import it.

With all due respect I'm unwilling to entertain the idea that my drive is faulty, it's only been used a couple of times (plays DVDs perfectly, and I've doubled checked that tonight after the computer failed to recognise audio CDs) and the laptop itself so far has been thoroughly well looked after.

I've looked around the net and there seem to be plenty of people with the same problem as me, it seems unlikely that their machines were all shipped with faulty drives.

From what I understand it seems to be that audio CDs that have the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo printed on the box have no problem playing on a Mac but CDs without that logo will not show up in iTunes or Finder. But going through my collection of CDs none of them seem to have the logo printed on them so perhaps that's an old standard? In which case this issue is a major shortfall of the Macintosh. However my opinion is far from expert and in any case I'm just speculating. The whole issue is confusing and frustrating and I do thank you very much for taking the time to post your help.

Best regards

Byron

I just gave that a shot but to no avail unfortunately, I don't believe the problem to be with iTunes but with OSX itself, as audio CDs don't appear in finder at all, let alone iTunes, I'm assuming the problem is entirely in the software as the CDs I'd like to import play fine on my girlfriend's Dell and DVDs play fine on my Mac. I could always just import them on the Dell and transfer them via USB stick but I'd rather not get into that habit as it won't always be available.

Just tried that as well, was almost kicking myself as it seemed so obvious yet still no luck, I suppose you must be right about the optical drive, I'm not too knowledgeable on how they operate and that seems like a very reasonable explanation considering the symptoms.

I'm currently in the process of downloading OSX 10.7.3, it's looking to take around 4 hours (My internet connection leaves a lot to be desired) so hopefully I might be able to resolve the problem then but my hopes aren't high.

Failing that I'll have to book an appointment at an Apple store next time I'm in the city, (I'm sixty miles from the store you see so unfortunately I can't really just take it in whenever I please) I'm sure in the meantime I'll be able to live with the issue.

Cheers for your suggestions guys 🙂

Byron

I would try this but I don't actually have a data CD to test the theory with, which does seem strange in this day and age (not having some old thing lying around - recently moved house) but everything on my computer has come from the net, I've literally only used my "superdrive" to watch two DVDs, I'll keep an eye out for anything I can use howeever.

Oh, and as an after thought, to clarify - if my Mac does recognise a data CD would this be a clear indication that there isn't a problem with the disc drive or is audio read from a CD on a different light frequency (not sure what the proper terminology is) than data? and also, just to clarify again - would a CD containing only MP3 audio count as an audio CD or data CD?

Cheers

Found a data CD, to my dismay same as with audio CD! Stays in for about twenty seconds, isn't recognised then spat back out again. No blank CDs lying around unfortunately (haven't burnt a CD in about four years thanks to the magical combination of iPods and speaker docks) but as before, will keep an eye out.

About a gig left on the OSX update so if that fails it looks like the genius bar is my only sensible option left, I just hope no course of action leaves me without my mac for a few days (absolutely love the thing,God knows why I didn't switch to Mac years ago) but I suppose sometimes in life you just have to roll with it 🙂