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Mountain Lion Caused My SuperDrive to Fail - How Do I Downgrade Back to Snow Leopard?

Recently I updated to Mac OS X Mountain Lion, immediately after the update, my SuperDrive no longer accepts ANY disc. At first, it would spit every disc out immediately within a matter of seconds. But now, it attempts to read the disc for about 15secs before spitting out ANY and ALL discs.

I surfed the internet looking for a solution and could not seem to find a working solution. So pretty much I'm extremely frustrated with Mountain Lion overall and would like to downgrade back to Snow Leopard.

Problem is, my superdrive does not accept any discs, so I cannot use the original disc I started with to downgrade. And I'm trying to avoid wiping my hard drive to execute the downgrade in case my super drive still doesn't work when I try to install the original Snow Leopard OS.

All in all, I'm very fed up with Mountain Lion, and just want Snow Leopard back. Please help!

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)

Posted on Sep 29, 2012 6:17 PM

19 replies

Edhurt7

Level 1

0 points

Dec 10, 2012 2:34 PM in response to WashingtonJoe

Any updates on what happened? I have the same problem with my macbook pro..

Dec 10, 2012 2:59 PM in response to koalacanth

You will need your Snow Leopard Install DVD to Revert back to Snow Leopard, if you dont have it, call Applecare and purchase one for $19.99

Jan 4, 2013 5:47 PM in response to WashingtonJoe

Has there been a fix to this problem? Since upgrading to Mountion Lion the superdrive on my MacBook pro starts and stops when reading CD's or DVD's.

BabyBlu3

Level 1

0 points

Jan 12, 2013 8:00 AM in response to terrysky13

At first, I wanted to add Quantal Quetzal to an external HDD to my dual boot of ML and W7. I already had the iso burned from a previous install to my netbook. I popped in the disc, and it whirred, then made a weird soft and fast clicking noise. To my dismay, I thought it was out of commission after reading forums like this. But, I could hear the drive powering up, as normal, after each reboot. I tried everything mentioned in all the support forums, and nothing seemed to work. But then I saw one thread where a guy suggested doing a cold boot after powering down completely and disconnecting the power source for a couple of minutes (I just powered down my MacBook (late 2009 model) overnight and powered back on in the morning), and presto! The drive worked! 😀 I don't believe there's anything wrong with the OS or hardware, other than perhaps something in the BIOS needed the cold boot to sync the DVD drive, again. Until I read that post, I had been doing warm reboots.

Anyways, I hope this helps with getting the drive to work. I also have Windows 7 Ultimate dual booted with Bootcamp. First attempt in Windows failed, but now that it's working in ML, will try again in W7.

Mountain Lion Caused My SuperDrive to Fail - How Do I Downgrade Back to Snow Leopard?