superdrive not loading discs after upgrading to el capitan

I was able to edit com.apple.Boot.plist, although I had to make a copy of the file and then move it back into the SystemConfiguration directory replacing the original file and using my admin password to authenticate. But it still did not allow me to use my USB SuperDrive. SIP was disabled, and hidden files were unhidden. Other thoughts are welcome. Thanks.

I wasn't even able to edit the Plist despite disabling the SIP. Since EC my superdrive is largely useless. I guess we await someone at Apple to notice this bug.

I wasn't able to directly edit the .plist file, but I could save my edits in a copy and then move it back to the directory. However, this didn't restore my SuperDrive function unless it was connected at the time of boot.

I've sent logs to Apple several times and been working with their tech team to try to solve this problem. They first thought that there was an issue with Logitech Control Center since it writes to a system file. Completely uninstalling LCC didn't help. They then thought there was a problem with Toast Titanium. Again, uninstalling didn't solve the problem. I'm thinking that perhaps a clean install and then reloading all my software and documents might be the only answer.

One more observation. When I connect my USB SuperDrive, it makes a soft "clunk" sound as though it was trying to pull in the disk - which it still won't do. I'm wondering if it think that there already is a disk inside. When it's connected at boot, there's no such sound.

Hi

for me only work if I do this:

1) With the macbook (turned on) in the finder plug the superdrive;

2) Restart the Macbook with the superdrive Plugged In

3) When the macbook restarted go to finder and click on devices.

But I think that Apple can solve this. It's ridiculous do this to access my drive.

adding mbasd=1 does work.
I got around the problem of not being able to edit the
com.apple.Boot.plist file as follows.

I started up off a backup.
Now using sudo, there was no problem editing the file.
Then I restarted with the el capitan system and
my superdrive worked again.

Really idiotic that they would break this and not even fix it by 11.11.1

Hi, just wondering how exactly to add mbasd=1?

Untouched, what I see in the plist file near "Kernel Flags" is:

...

<dict>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string></strings>

</dict>

</plists>

Should I add mbasd = 1 like this:

...

<dict>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

mbasd = 1

<string></strings>

</dict>

</plists>

If not, how?

No, it should in between the two strings.

<string>mbasd=1</string>

Excellent. Rebooting with the Superdrive connected helped solve my issue! Thanks iPadHeadache!

I have my iMAC with built in optical drive. Since upgraded to El Capitan following problemes occured:

1. My localhost (MAMP) - I can't write, copy, move, delete anything in "Sites" folder. I Also have still the old "Webfolder", but MAMP doesn't mount it as a localhost.

2. After a couple of tries I was able to burn a data DVD. But I am not able to check or read it, because after about 15 seconds of reading the disk is ejected.

I tried to downgrade back to Yosemite, but even avter restoring from TimeMachine, again only El Capitan is installed.

I do not know how to activate or get into the root directory that you mention.

hi

i have an IMAC with a built in superdrive.

I disabled SIP, i changed plist file and inserted mbasd=1 and saved.

i restarted my computer several times but the dvd still ejects my dvd's

i don't know what else to do

I'm sure this will apply to very few people, but in my case the culprit was Blackberry device manager. Installed it a long time ago for work, and its device manager services must have been interfering with the drive under El Capitan.

If you run activity monitor and look for BBDaemon (and I think BB Device Manager - can't recall and I've deleted it now), then this could be your issue. In spotlight, search for Blackberry and run the Blackberry Device Manager uninstall. The uninstall makes you reboot, and after that the drive worked for me.

I tried everything suggested in this thread and nothing worked. I also tried remote disc from another Mac and that mounted the disc, but the installer wouldn't run. It claimed the install.app was damaged or incomplete.

I was making an image of the disc that I was going to copy to an external HD to install from, but I tried one more thing. I dug up a different superdrive and the disc mounted and installer ran.

Bad superdrive? could it be a firmware/REV issue?

Anyway, the second superdrive fixed our problem.

So far I've been able to find two things that work at least in part — enough to keep CDs usable:

1) CHANGE THE COM.APPLE.BOOT.PLIST FILE. I haven't been able to follow drwilczur's procedure exactly, but as far as I was able to do it, it helped. I got it to work, but only temporarily. Every few hours a reboot was needed to refresh it.

2) REINSTALL OS 10.11.1. This has turned out to be easy. It does have the drawback, though, that you have to be content with rejecting newer OS updates till the issue gets fixed.

METHOD 1:

CHANGE THE COM.APPLE.BOOT.PLIST FILE. As drwilczur says, "to manipulate the system, you must be 'root' user." Like others, I don't know how to do this. However, I too found a quick and dirty way. Like kaolive (above) I booted from an external drive and logged in as an administrator. However, I didn't need Terminal.app. I just changed it with a text editor. (It was not even necessary to disable system integrity protection.) As I said, this has worked in part.

A reason this was so easy to do for me may be that the drive I booted from was a duplicate (clone). The user account was the same on both drives.

A strange thing, though, is that after turning to the second method and reinstalling OS 10.11.1, I got a new pristine com.apple.Boot.plist file without drwilczur's change. CDs now work perfectly with this file as is (under OS 10.11.1).

METHOD 2:

REINSTALL OS 10.11.1. I did this by copying the Install OS 10 app to my Applications folder and just running it. After the install was finished I ran the OS 10.11.1 updater. (I downloaded this from Apple.)

Since doing this a few weeks ago I have had no more issues with CDs.

MORE ON CHANGING THE COM.APPLE.BOOT.PLIST FILE

Discs mounted with no problems after I did this. However, after some hours the OS seems to get amnesia. It would fail to see a new disc that I inserted. A restart reliably removed the amnesia (but again, only for some hours more).

I ripped CDs to MP3 in iTunes for a week with this fix. Apart from the restart thing, it was completely reliable.

MORE ON THE NATURE OF THE CD PROBLEM

As for the disc problem itself, I've noticed these features of it:

- I would insert a disc and nothing happened. The Finder behaved as though nothing was inserted.

- The eject key did nothing.

- iTunes acted as though there was no disc inserted. The eject command in iTunes did nothing.

- Disk Utility showed a spinning wheel on launch and said, "Loading disks". No discs ever loaded and the wheel never stopped. However, Disk Utility would quit normally.

- Roxio Toast was the exception. It always saw the disc and could work with it and eject it.

- A clean install has been mooted in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7410790. This would involve restarting from the recovery partition to do it. No-one has confirmed that this works, though. People have confirmed that other ways of fixing the OS don't work.

- The 11.11.2 update has been fingered as the culprit (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7410790). In my case, I used the combo 11.11.2 update, downloaded from Apple. Even after that I had the same problem.

- The problem was still there for me with the 11.11.3 update (again using the combo updater).