My iMac (mid-2011) has a CD/DVD drive which I have not used

Question

My iMac (mid-2011) has a CD/DVD drive which I have not used

How do I use it? Where to find instructions? I see "System Preferences" has a button for CDs and DVDs. But I don't know what all the choices mean. I also gather Apple stopped including this hardware in subsequent iMacs.

The technical specs for this are as follows, but this does not mean a whole lot to me.

OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5680H:

Firmware Revision: 3AHF

Interconnect: ATAPI

Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)

Cache: 2048 KB

Reads DVD: Yes

CD-Write: -R, -RW

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

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

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

iPhone 4S, iOS 8.1.3

Posted on May 30, 2015 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

216,506 points

May 30, 2015 1:22 PM in response to chadfrom purchase

How do I use it?

It's used to read and play music CDs or rip them into an iTunes library. To play video DVDs on your iMac. It can be used to burn files to a data CD or DVD or burn a video DVD created with iDVD to disk for playing on a TV set.

Software used to come on DVD disks and were installed from them.

So it depends on what you want to do as to how to use it.

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

362,023 points

May 30, 2015 1:49 PM in response to chadfrom purchase

If you open the CD & DVDs preferences you can select what should happen when a disc is inserted.

I'm sorry my earlier answer was over-simplified, but I did not interpret what you said correctly. 🙂

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,023 points

May 30, 2015 1:19 PM in response to chadfrom purchase

There is a slot on the side of the computer. Just push a disc in regardless of what it is for. Optical drives are no longer part of new Macs. The Eject button on the keyboard is used to eject a disc in the slot. You might try reading the user guide that came with the computer. If you don't have it then you can download it from support.apple.com/manuals/.

Oh, do not under any circumstances insert anything other than 5 1/4" optical discs.

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Answer 4

May 30, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Kappy

I do know how to insert and eject a disk. I don't think the computer came with a manual. I will follow your link to see if I can find one. Thanks. So far I found 318 different choices under Mac desktop manuals.

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Answer 5

May 30, 2015 1:45 PM in response to Old Toad

"It depends on what you want to do as to how to use it"

The first question is what CAN it do, not what do I want to use it for.

I'd like it to present me with a list of choices, but I don't think it can do that.

I'd like it to spit out $100 bills. Again, not holding my breath.

I don't even know how to tell a CD from a DVD.

Sorry, not helpful.

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