MacOS Sierra Superdrive not working

If you unplug your SuperDrive while your computer is still powered up and then plug it back in does it get recognized With a disk in the player of course.? --- or do you have to do a reboot each time you unplug

I just bought a new MacBook Pro 2017 with MacOS Sierra. I had the same problem with the Superdrive not being recognized, except in iTunes, but still would not accept a disc. amelia290's suggestions 1-4 did the trick. I didn't have to clean out my Blackberry software, but I did have to open the CD DVD player's software manually to get the disc to play. From that point, it accepted the DVDs and opened the player on its own. Thank you amelia290 for posting your findings.

Thanks for your question. I had a similar issue: Since I updated my OS from El Captain to Sierra, my Built in DVD drive doesn't respond to F keys that used to open it. I have a 2012 Mac Desktop Pro, 39 Lb. computer that has NO access to the CD DVD drive to manually open it. I got the window open manually, tried a thin wire to push into the hole that usually is there to allow it to open when all else fails. got Nothing.

I spent 10 minutes searching controls and preferences but only got instructions on how to eject a CD or DVD. not any instructions to open it. Zero instructions on how to open it anywhere on my Mac Pro DESKTOP.

Apparently, apple in their infinite lack of wisdom, chooses to ignore CD's in Sierra OS.

However your post mentioned itunes and eject, which I'm glad to report: did work. 🙂

Thank you, you are much more helpful than Apple computer.

Thank you for posting this... worked on High Sierra on my MacBook Air 13" 2011 and the post saved me a long call with Apple!!!

HI,

Same issue here but it's the 2nd internal optical drive (Blu-Ray RW) that's now not being recognised by Sierra. Moved up to Sierra a few days ago and the drive is visible on start up but then i'll get this warning msg after 10 mins or so saying "you've inserted an unreadable disk....what do you want to do etc". Spoke with Apple support and they suggested the SMC reset which didn't cure the issue. If i boot up in any other OS lower then Sierra, everything is fine. I've turned off 'Put hard drives to sleep' in SysPrefs and changed the CD&DVD settings as suggested here but it's not made much of a difference.

Would be nice if Apple had an answer to this...

Cheers

SkM

Just wanted to update the community on my solution to this issue.

So, after consolidating info from the net, here are the steps I used to get the Superdrive to work on a 2016 13" MacBook Pro w/ Function Keys:

1. Boot in Recovery Mode (hold CMD + R when booting up)

2. Open Terminal, which should start with the Bash prompt

3. Paste nvram boot-args="mbasd=1" and hit enter

4. Then, paste nvram boot-args to ensure "mbasd" was set to 1

5. Restart normally

6. Plug in Superdrive, and off you go.

Following these steps to the letter worked for me. Some instructions on the next say to paste in sudo nvram boot-args="mbasd=1" to Terminal after rebooting, but you'll (probably) get the error that 'sudo doesn't exist', which is why I removed it from the command.

Also, use these steps if you're getting the nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found error when trying paste the above command into Terminal when login in normally.

I found that installing Sierra had turned on "Put hard drives to sleep when possible" in my Energy Saving preferences (I've installed several times and this happens consistently). For some reason Sierra tries to put the optical drive in my Mac Pro to sleep if the machine has been idle for a while! Before that the drive works fine but afterwards any attempt to use it fails (and locks up whatever is trying to use it). In my case, turning off this preference (which I didn't want on anyway) effected a complete fix.

I have the same problem but my CD-DVD driver is internal in a Mack Book Pro (Mid 12). I upgraded to Sierra but it destroyed the drive. I had to downgrade to Yosemite. Now my superdrive don't work anymore.

I have the exact opposite problem, my unit won't INject the disk! After installing Sierra I decided to replace my broken optical drive (got a late 2009 imac 21.5, dvd drive worked about 10 times then wouldn't read any disk, I've been lazy...took 8 years to replace it) with a new one called (sony?) Optiarc DVD RW AD-7640S; at first it didn't work so I suspected it was broken or some connector was bad so I disconnected/reconnected the sata plug while the computer was ON and drive took the disk properly and started spinning so I was happy and reassembled everything neat, restarted and...bummer...drive is dead again. so I tried to push the disk completely inside but didn't help. looking on the net they said reset smc but didn't help. another person wrote type drutil tray eject in terminal, tried that and after about 10 seconds the drive wakes up (like a zombie)!! and ejects the disk!!! then I put the disk back in and it worked perfect. I even ejected it and used other disks successfully. I was very happy. but after about one minute it dies again...doesn't want any disk. completely dead. so back to terminal and write drutil tray eject...wait a few secs and there you go, it works again. so, each time I have to use the cd/dvd I must type drutil tray eject in terminal. I can live with that but I'd prefer it worked normally. any suggestion?

Here is something interesting .... the drive is recognized for me without a reboot, but while it's not recognized, you can issue

drutil eject

from Terminal and it popped a disk out (that's why I was stuck wanted the disc I left in there) and it popped it out and not it recognizes it!

Thank you. I unplugged all my USB devices, including my PC-style wireless KB/mouse (plugging in my wired), and upon reboot the stuck CD popped out and my drive is recognized. Woohooo! I was at a loss for about a week and a half.

So, dug into this a bit. I have a MB Pro 15” touch bar from Dec 2016. Since buying it, I have been fraught with not being able to read/view CD/DVD’s. I have tried three different external players (all work with my 2008 MB Pro running El Capitan) but don’t seem to work under Sierra. Yes, I have Apple USB-A adapters and third party adapters which don’t seem to make any difference at all.

I read a little further down that using the ‘nvram’ prompt could do something. I tried that except that the variable ‘boot-args’ does not exist. I dumped out all the nvram variables and skimmed through them. There isn’t a ‘boot-args’ variable.

Then, another post response said to check the ‘CD DVD’ settings in ‘System Preferences’. Well, this setting doesn’t exist anymore in Sierra so was a bit confused.

Then, I decided to do some troubleshooting on a 2010 MB Pro by installing El Capitan and then Sierra. What is there in Sierra is under DVD Player -> Preferences. Look for the setting to automatically open the player on insertion of a DVD. Turn that on. Now when you insert a DVD, the DVD Player will open. Just pause the player and your DVD will stay mounted and you can use whatever player you like to view it.

Evidently, there’s some sort of hand-shaking in the background going on. The DVD’s when inserted WITHOUT this setting will mount and then suddenly without notice unmount (disappear). I caught a bit of a log file that says this

“Error ‘Scsi error - ILLEGAL REQUEST:READ OF SCRAMBLED SECTOR WITHOUT AUTHENTICATION' occurred while reading 'DVD+R PLEXTOR"

So, evidently once this is received the DVD in ejected as it senses there isn’t an authenticated ‘reader’. This appears to be some sort of structure protection to prevent only ‘authenticated’ readers from viewing the DVD (e.g. not VLC or any other freeware reader).

So, turn on the attribute for DVD Player to start on DVD insertion, then pause DVD Player and open the DVD with whatever program you choose. It apparently stays accessible as long as DVD Player is open.

Hope this helps others as I have racked my brain trying to get my external drive to work with Sierra.

Wanted to add some additional troubleshooting for the MB Pro 15” with touchbar.

I figured out that ONLY the apple Thunderbolt-to-USB single port adapter (e.g. not a hub adapter) will support the required handshake noted above and keep the DVD mounted. So, you have to dedicate a whole thunderbolt port just to a DVD drive or else the handshake errors out and the drive is ejected.

Not a very ideal situation since the whole idea behind Thunderbolt is to have many different devices in the chain.

Maybe the communication stack is to tight on Sierra or something but Apple is being very closed mouth about this. My guess is it will miraculously get fixed in some new release (or at least I hope it will).

I have the same problem. I did clean the Powerbook pro with Malwarebytes. Never had McKeeper or Blackberry on my laptop. Did an SMC reset. And followed the instruction of Amelia290. No results.

I removed all the USB devices and disconnect the monitor. And the Superdrive worked fine! When I plugged in the monitor, it doesn't work anymore.