Noisy, vibrating DVD/CD/Optical Drive

I'm here today for two reasons. The first is to seek out an answer to the same type of problem you are having. I have the 20" w/Superdrive and burn DVDs and CDs with regularity. Now, with some use behind it, the Superdrive is beginning to make whirr sounds and vibrate. Not always but often enough to cause concern. I have burned out DVDRoms before, primarily on Thinkpads. Those were easy to replace and they pop in/out. My fear is the Superdrive is not that 'super' and will need to be replaced. I *do not* want to have to send the machine off or be without it for any given hour much less days in service.

Is the Superdrive replaceable without service? If not, why not?

BTW, I have an external Lacie previously used with my Thinkpads. I connected it to my iMac last night via USB and it works - somewhat. I am having problems but I'll start another thread for that. For those with Lacie external DVDRWs please look for that threat.

I think I know what the problem is and there is no pleasant way to put this.....
Apple used Matshita Superdrives in the majority of the Intel iMacs.
(You can check by looking under "About this Mac" under the blue Apple icon)
From what I've gathered these are some of the crappiest drives around. So just
bank on having to send in your iMac to Apple to have it replaced.
Then again I could be completely wrong but I've read up on these drives and
I've had friends that know a decent amount about this sort of thing and they
have pointed me into the conclusion that the Matshita Drives are horrible.
Then again it could just be a software issue. It's really weird my external
Pioneer that is an 8x burner only burns at 4x speed on my Intel iMac and
the Matshita drive burns at 2x...... This may very well be a software issue.

And Hudson, You probably could replace the drive yourself But, it would void
whatever kind of warranty that you have left on your machine. I've also read
that these things are a real pain to get into. The iMac wasn't designed to be
upgraded, it was designed for simplicity and beauty.
And, so in three or four years you'll have to buy a new one instead of simply
upgrading it.

If you look at my post from the other day, you'll see that I am having problems with my super drive. What I found out is that my local CompUSA will do an in house drive replacement ( order the part from apple and install ) and NOT send it back to Apple.

So if that is your big fear, you should check if the local authorized whatever does this.

At least your drive is just noisy, mine is noisy and is cutting rings in dvds and not playing them.

i completely disagree...The matshita (i.e. Panasonic) drives are very good drives. I have the same UJ846 in my dell 700m for a while now. I think it is more software, maybe firmware, than the drive itself. I have been backing up discs on the intel imac onto HD for the past week and i've noticed that the system will hang on my intel imac on some songs, where the same disc and song on the 700m will do just fine. or maybe it's the close proximity of the magnet (although i higly doubt this).

opening up the intel imac is easy enough, some fiddling on the foil, but easy enough...but again, you'd void the warranty doing so.

I've always been one of those 'lemme fix it myself' kinda guys and would really dislike sending the machine back for any reason. Most importantly is the information available on my hard drive. I don't care what anyone or any service person tells you about security of information, if it can be accessed someone somewhere will use it. I cannot understand why Apple would be so foolish to make the Intel iMac so non-fix unfriendly. But then I can't figure out why on earth they didn't provide an emergency eject button either - what are (were) these people thinking (our stuff is so good no CD would ever get stuck???)?

I haven't solved the problem getting the Lacie Slim to burn but I keep plugging away at it. The internal drive does work and it only whirrs or grinds every now and then. I'm able to use the Lacie to copy DVD and CD files over to the desktop and then burn using the Internal and that cuts the wear/tear on that interal down. But if that internal goes out on me I'll need an external solution.

Roxio wrote me back and said they were working on a Universal release of Toast 7 so that's something to look forward to.

I also need a universal release of Final Cut Pro which is "due" this month.

Thanks to all for the comments and advice. If a solution is found I'll post it here.

Hudson

if it is grinding and whirling, mine is silent on most, i'd say there is a problem. i know on some discs like symantec or microsoft, i've had whirling and noises and vibrations due to overspinning reading those cd's. the only time my cd's make a noise, is when there is a read error. there is something wrong with the firmware or a conflict with the os/intel/firmware for the drive. like i said before, i have the same drive in the dell 700m and it works fine on the trouble discs for the imac.

i wish there was an emergency eject button too. in fact, there is an eject button on the drive itself, but it is covered by the imac housing. it would be located 1cm up from the bottom of the slot and to the back of the opening. even though the drive freezes, i have been able to force stop the program and eventually the cd will come out.

i just bought discblaze, hoping that it will be better than toast. i do not like toast at all. i just bought toast last week. hopefully, roxio will make it a free upgrade to the univeral or an update. i guess i'll just have to do all my burning on nero through my pc.

imtjm, I'm actually happy to hear that the Matshita drives are good because the
closest Apple repair place for me is about four hours away and as I stated above
the only things that I was able to find about these drives were negative.
So I'm really happy to here just the opposite.
I also agree with you about this being a software driver or firmware issue and not a hardware
issue. I mean I have an external Pioneer that is a 8x burner and when it was
hooked up to my iBook it burnt at 8x regardless of media (as long as the media was at least 8x)
and when I hooked it up to my Intel iMac it will only burn at 4x.... Now this is
with the same media that I used in my iMac that only burnt at 2x....
I just hope that Apple reads this and comes up with a fix.

My drive was making alot of noise also when copying files or when the hard drive began to spin.

It turned out to be this particular DVD that was causing the noise because I inserted and tested other DVD's and the drive was quiet. I have the following drive:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846:

Firmware Revision: FB2U

Most often, you'll notice that the printing on the back side of the CDs / DVDs that vibrate is not even. For example, discs that only had half of their back surface printed often vibrate.

The weight difference due to the paint may seem minor, but at the high RPMs these discs spin at, it does make a difference.