Super Drive won't read blank media, will read others just fine...

I have the exact same issue! IT just popped up today as a matter of fact. I call Apple and they walked me though some troubleshooting procedures and they are going to send me a new drive. Funny, the blank media that my G5 tower will not read, will read just fine on my G4 Powerbook.

Update. Just for the heck of it, I loaded iPhoto and iTunes, them burned a CD each time - SUCCESSFULLY! Blank media will still not load in the finder. I even got a message that the media is in use by another app. In disk utility, I cannot burn since it shows up as not writeable. However, I would think if there was a hardware issue, I would not be able to burn in anything.

I just installed a terabye external Western Digitial drive. I wonder if the drivers for this thing are stomping on the OS somehow. I guess I need to call Western Digitial. I'm not so convinced that I have a superdrive failure.

Thoughts?

Same here, since last week my superdrive (HL-DT-ST GWA-4165B) won't read any blank DVDs or CDs (I tried 4 different products), however reads all other disks. I did not install anything new. My G4-Powerbook is having no problems with the same disks.

As we are having the same problem at the same time - is there a flaw in one of the latest Apple updates ? I ran a virus check (Intego) with no result...

I too have the same issue, it first started around two weeks ago. My G5 did not recognise any blank media (CD/DVD) on its internal or external firewire drive. Rewritable media could not be erased.

I am convinced that the problem is software, as I re-installed 10.4 as a last resort and could then see (re)writable CD/DVD media again. The problem re-occurred yesterday.

I also have the WD MyBook PRO 1TB drive. Though i'll have to check later to see when I actually installed it. It would be suspicious if it happened around two weeks after I installed the MyBook.

G5 1.8 SP Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Wow I'm so glad to see that other people are have this issue. My drive stopped reading blank media as well. All other disc's work fine but when I insert a blank disc, it rev's up and then just does nothing.
I'm running 3.9 and I re-installed but it didn't help.
I can see the media in Disk Utilities but I don't know how to burn from there. I guess I will have to figure it out and then call Apple for help.

G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

My superdive is back. I completely disconnnected my 1TB My Book drive, removed the software, did an archive and install of the OS and everything is in order. I am burning CDs and DVDs with impunity.

You won't believe this... Best Buy sold me a drive that is classified as "out of region" by Western Digitial. That means the the drive is supposed to be sold in Europe, not here in the states. I returned it to Best Buy and they shrugged their shoulders... My suggestion is to get an external drive that does not require special drivers like the G drives.

I don't think that the MyBook 1TB installs any 'drivers' as such, it does install the management utility, the button manager and I see a couple of processes running that seem to be looking for the drive.

What I don't understand is why the internal drive fails too as it is nothing to do with the firewire bus.

I also guess that other people here seeing this problem don't have the 'MyBook' drive?. As I said I did a reinstall and could then use CDs/DVDs as normal. It then failed a couple of weeks later. It's odd that the problem seems to take time to appear, i'm still inclined to think that it's the OS.

Well, I did what I hate to do and that's add to the problem before I know what the problem. However it was cheaper that buying a new drive so I upgraded my system to Tiger and my burner 'magically' recognized blank media again which makes me think it is in fact an os issue.

Shortly before I lost the ability to burn discs I had some other software issues with Quark and InDesign that I thought were related only to them. I had to re-install my os to get them to play nice again, so now I'm convinced it was the os.

I found this thread as a result of mysteriously loosing my ability to mount blank media in the Finder. I too have recently purchased a My Book Pro Edition II 1 TB external drive.

I fortunately have multiple internal HDs so I was able to do a little troubleshooting. I installed 10.4 from scratch, then incrementally installed updates. Each time I tested to see if my media would mount. Each time it would.

I had all the OS updates installed and everything worked. I then installed the My Book Raid Manager and did the requisite reboot. When I got back to the desktop, I tried to mount a blank CD. It failed with the error stating the media cannot be mounted because it is not recognized. I'd say this is definitely a My Book Raid Manager problem.

I called Western Digital and they can not tell me how to uninstall the product. Their answer was to delete the My Book Raid Manager program from the apps folder and reboot. I did and that, of course, didn't fix it. I did some poking around while I was on the phone with them and found out the following things:

1. In the install log, the following entry was made indicating a number of files were installed.

Feb 21 17:26:17 home-power-mac-g5 : TOTAL: Packages report 47 files, 47 actual files written


When I count up the package components of the two files listed below, I only come up with 38 items (including the package icon). However, the install log shows 47 items installed.
Feb 21 17:26:18 home-power-mac-g5 :Registered /Applications/MyBook RAID Manager.app.
Feb 21 17:26:18 home-power-mac-g5 : Registered /Library/StartupItems/WDNotifier.app.

That means there are 9 files floating around out there. The install log gives no paths other than the two listed above. This isn't good, especially since Western Digital can't tell me what is written where and their answer for an uninstall is to reinstall the OS. Unacceptable!

I've called Apple under my AppleCare and given them all the info I can on this. This is a driver problem and is should be of concern to Apple, since this drive is sold at the Apple Store. The drivers for this screw up the OS and Apple should put a stop to this.

Anyone else figured anything else out on this?

- Keith

I truly believe this is a dust problem - not an update problem - as I didn't update - and had the same problem.

I was told many things, including if I found old 4x or 8x media it would be fine. (But that just doesn't exist in my neck of the woods anymore...)

What I have done, and sorry for those of you who have seen this on the other threads - was composed what I believed to be the most helpful advice I found here, compiled it into one list - and now sharing.

My personal advice - spend the 43 bucks. The new drive makes life so much easier...

And yes, Apple should find out why - because it has happened to too many of us -- and all on different systems....

********
If you read the other threads about this "SuperDrive" you will see there are some things you can do before you call the drive dead. BTW - your symptoms are not like the rest of ours - so keep your fingers crossed.

You could

1) zap the perimeters
Re: Superdrive gave up the ghost -- where to start?
Posted: Oct 26, 2006 11:32 AM in response to: dçøyan
From: Sherry Johnson
Frst, boot to open firmware holding apple-option-o-f and then type in the following commands--
reset-nvram (hit return)
set-defaults (hit return)
reset-all (hit retur

2) Rewrite the Permissions through Disk Utility
Can't find the original post for this- but guarantee it was one of the suggestions given

3) Download PatchBurn - courtesy of Michael McMann1
http://www.patchburn.de/download.html

4) Change Your Media - courtesy of Sue DIllini
May I suggest that you use Verbatim DVD-R at 4x or slower to burn.
Read these:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86130
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151900
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302925

4) Try using it through a different program - like Toast
several different posts - hard to say who gets the credit...

5) My personal favorite - (also courtesy of Sherry Johnson) remove all electrical everything from the computer and open it up. Remove fan and see little silver square (on the bottom of the motherboard) it has a little white circle button - press and hold for a full second - it's called resetting the motherboard.

6) Let Apple know (courtesy of Sue Dillini)
Tell them about it here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

7) and after you've tried all these "helpful" hints - Buy a new one.
Courtesy of Steve Boultbee
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/
and installation instructions are here: (but he lets you know they forgot to tell you to remove the faceplate first.) http://www.apple.com/support/powermac/doityourself/storage.html

Um, I think this answer doesn't really apply to this thread, as most people have indicated they have a "MyBook" external drive from Western Digital. As I stated in my previous post, I've proven this issue is related to Western Digital's "MyBook RAID Manager" application.

Dust, zapping the PRAM, replacing the drive, etc. won't solve the problem in this case. Getting Western Digital to stop writing flawed drivers will.

- Keith

No thanks to Western Digital, I figured this out on my own. I installed the OS from scratch, fully patched it up, then I did a backup with Retrospect. I then installed the MyBook RAID Manager and then did another backup (incremental).

I looked at the contents list of the second backup. This told me what was put where by the installer, as the only thing I had done after the first backup was run the installer (of course there were some extra files, like system log files and such that got backed up, but I could still tell what was part of the install).

I then tried one file at a time and found that in the <volume>/library/LaunchDaemons folder, there was a file called com.WD.WDDriveServices.plist. This file references a file in the /usr/bin directory called WDDrvSvc. When I removed the file in the LauchDaemons folder and rebooted, all is well. I can mount media again.

Western Digital was no help at all with this, as their solution was to reinstall the OS. They could not tell me where the components were installed or what was installed. I had to do their job for them.

So, if you have a MyBook and have installed their RAID Manager software and have lost your ability to mount blank media, remove the aforementioned file and you are good to go.

- Keith

I to have this same issue My Book WD since iv installed it i cant burn CD tell me more about a europe version if you could i to bought mine from Best buy.

I to have this same issue My Book WD since iv installed it i cant burn CD tell me more about a europe version if you could i to bought mine from Best buy to.
Tell me more on how u unistalled your raid software just delete files from app folder?

Just Disconnected my My Book WD and burning a cd worked with DiscBlaze.. Any fix yet?