Q: USB Superdrive ceased working on iMac?

Normally you can't plug an external SuperDrive into a Mac with a built in SuperDrive. Not sure why that worked for you. As far as the internal drive not working, it could be dirty and needs cleaned or it has failed.

I am having the same problem with the built in Super Drive on my older iMac.  I put a DVD in the drive and it spins for awhile before being ejected.  I then noticed that the DVD drive is not showing up in Finder.  I checked on my preferences in finder to make sure showing the DVD/CD was checked.  I also did a SCM and PRAM reset.  I also have a USB super drive and when I plug it in to the old iMac it does work.  I also noticed that disk utility does not recognize the Super drive either.

As DialaBrain said, Apple’s external SuperDrive was made to work only with the Mac computers that don’t have an internal SuperDrive. Since you computer did come with an internal optical drive the external should not have work without modifications. There was a hack published some time ago that allowed people to use the external SuperDrive on other Macs. Did you use that hack? If so it is possible/probable that an OS update or upgrade killed the hack. That’s the only way I can figure out that it once worked but no longer does.

For what it is worth, LG makes a small portable optical drive that costs about $35 and is both quite good and reliable. I have two, one which travels with me and both are still going strong after more than 2 years.

I saw that post.  But my problem is the internal drive is not working.  Even if the USB drive is not attached. 

Oddly, I can get the external USB drive to work, but I would like to get my internal drive to work.  It seem like it id not being recognized by the OS.

1. Are the discs you tried using clean and free of scratches? The slot loading drives are very finicky
2. A dirty lens is often the cause of drive problems. Lens cleaners are inexpensive and worth trying
3. unfortunately these drives die and in my experience don't last as long as tray loading drives. It may simply be dead.

Hi dwb,

Thanks for your help.

I am coming to the conclusion that the drive has just died.  The DVDs do work in other drives (like the USB Super drive on my Macbook Air) so I don't think is the the DVD disc.   I am thinking I may try cleaning the lens, but since the drive is not even showing up in finder I am thinking it is something more than just a dirty lens.

Thanks again.

The optical drive won’t appear in the Finder until a disc mounts and, of course, if the lens is dirty that won’t happen.