External DVD drive not working post-Mojave update

I have a SuperDrive pulled from an older MacBook Pro (when I replaced it with an SSD) housed in an external drive housing sold by Other World Computing. It worked great with that MacBook Pro, but wasn't working with my 2017 MBP which has 4 USB-C plugins. I was plugging in the USB-A into my adapter system, and although it would make noises like it was trying to spin up to speed, it didn't sound right and it wasn't recognized.

The drive container has two USB -A cables ganged together, one for data and one for external power (only necessary I think when the data connection doesn't carry enough power, which can happen with laptops). I tried plugging in that secondary USB connector into a small USB charger (similar to what Apple provides with an iPhone) and the drive was able to spin up and easily was recognized by the MBP.

So although some people may have problems with external drives due to OS issues, in my case it was a power issue; once I recognized this as a possibility, it was easy to resolve.

Hey everyone! Was experiencing this issue and I found a solution that works.

I am currently running Mojave 10.14.4 on a 2015 MacBook Pro with a Samsung SE-506BB Blu-Ray/DVD/CD external drive. What I realized was that my discs were only playing when my MacBook was plugged in! Whether CD or DVD. Not a problem, as I expect to leave my Macbook Pro plugged in for a movie anyway. Follow these steps:

1. Plug in your MacBook and make sure it's fully updated.
2. Connect your external drive and insert a CD (I used a movie soundtrack).
3. Wait for the system to recognize the CD. Open it in iTunes to see if it plays.
4. Once the CD is recognized, go into System Preferences and select CDs & DVDs.
5. At the bottom, in "When you insert a video DVD" select "Open DVD Player" as your option.
6. Exit out of System Preferences, and restart the system.
7. Making sure your MacBook is plugged in, insert a DVD and see if it plays.

Hope this helps!

There appear to be several options with this issue. One was the restart - I recommend holding the command/option/Pand R keys all together as it boots, and it should boot and reboot again.

My problem was on a MacBook Pro 2018 Mojave (10.14.2) with 4 USB-C ports. The SuperDrive would not let in a disk. It did work with my MacBook Pro 2013 running Mojave (10.14.2) - and its built-in USB (A) connector. I have two adapters that connect to the USB-C ports on my new MacBook and neither of them worked with the DVD drive. Went to the Apple store and tried an Apple USB-C to USB 3.0 (A) and it worked! Guess it was the power because plugging the Apple adapter into the power supply USB-C port on my other adapters did work while plugging the SuperDrive into their USB 3.0 ports did not, and plugging the Apple adapter into their other USB-C ports did not work.

After following advice below and going into Disk Utility where I could see the DVD was indeed mounted, I was able to right-click on the DVD icon, which then gave me the option to Show in Finder. I am now copying it to my desktop and it IS very slow.

Changing to a different usb cable solved problem for me.

Still no fix...

Apple support linked this article in their response to my tweet: https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT203336

However, they either don't realise that this is not a solution, or they pretend not to.

This article tells us how to set the default actions AFTER your computer RECOGNISES a blank DVD.

The problem is that it's not recognised.

Neither Finder nor iTunes see the DVD, so there's no point in setting up these actions.

The only thing that works for me is CREATING A BLANK FOLDER somewhere, COPYING the items into this folder, and then right-clicking the folder to select 'Burn "ABC" to Disc...'

However, this is very inconvenient, because you're dealing with COPIES of the original files, and not the LINKS to these files.

How a normal disc burning system should work (and used to work before) is: whatever you drag into the BURN FOLDER, you're creating a link (alias) to the original file. This has 2 advantages:

1. putting these files into a burn folder takes a fraction of the second
2. no additional hard disc space is taken

Currently, when assembling a DVD to burn, up to additional 4.5 GB could be taken (this is just for a single disc - what if you want to prepare several discs to burn?). And it takes time to copy all the files.

I have had the same problem. The only fix I have found is restarting the computer and it will then read the disk as normal. Yet if it goes to screen saver or the drive goes lax in anyway then it looses its mind and doesn't find it. Then restart the computer and it will find it also.

External programs such as Express burn will still burn to my disk. Even when it doesn't find it. Yet sometimes it won't find the disk drive. I have a feeling its the same thing they done to the iPhones on the Battery issues.

Forcing upgrade to the latest greatest thing. As their sales have droooooooppppped since the old man who was king died. They have no directions and have alienated the true believers in the product with this samsung lifestyle to attract the new crowd. Instead of making it great for the ones who truly shell out the money instead of hackintoshing it. Which I'm about to do as their new hardware is two years old out of the stall and so over priced that foreigners are leaping to there death building them.

I think Im wiping and heading back to siere or high siera where things JUST Worked as the old forgotten slogan spoke.

I followed the advice about going up to the finder and closing burn to disk. It worked fine for me that way.

Running 10.14.4 Beta - Purchased music disc did launch iTunes, reads/searches for about 10 seconds & then ejects the disc.

Disk Utility doesn't even show the external drive.

No sign of a CD/DVD on the desktop.

Last worked back with High Sierra I think.

2017 MBP 15"

There doesn't appear to be a resolution to this period nor does Apple seem to care...wtf?

Having similar problems. I have a new 2018 MacBook Air with the USB-C ports and a superdrive that is probably 8 years old. I use the Apple USB-C multi port adapter. My super drive will not play or even see DVD's. It does see and play audio CD's. The superdrive always worked with my old Air which I don't have anymore, and still works with my older iMac that has not been upgraded to Mojave. I do not need to use an adapter with the old iMac because it has the old school USB ports which connect directly to the superdrive. Have tried the German restart thing, and it did see and start to play a DVD, but it won't continue to work normally. Sometimes if I restart it will see some DVD's, but still not play them normally and some DVD's it still doesn't see at all, so you can't even eject it. Plug the superdrive with the same DVD in my old iMac without Mojave and it runs normally and of course can be ejected. Going into the Genius Bar tomorrow without much hope. Frustrating.

See post by Jared Winter on Page 2. His solution works. However, it is very confusing when the burner doesn't show up on the desktop. Apple needs to fix this pronto!

I'm having the same problem on my 2017 iMac. The external DVD drive is Apple model number A1379 and it's only a couple years old. It worked fine before I installed Mojave. The drive no longer shows up in Finder. I've tried the obvious things like restarting and plugging into different USB ports. The drive shows up in Disk Utility, but the buttons for First Aid, Mounting, etc. are grayed out. The same is true for my co-worker's iMac. I really hope we don't have to buy new external drives. We work with large files that need to be given to vendors and DVDs are the easiest way.

I had the same problem and the first three steps from a similar German thread helped in my case:

1. Open Disc Utility and run First Aid

2. Restart you Mac with the shift key pressed

3. Restart you Mac again (the usual way)

That worked for me and my SuperDrive works now. Here is the thread (in German) if you need more information:

USB SuperDrive wird am MacBook Pro (Mitte… - Apple Community

The problem with the dvd or cd it only showed on the screen when a disc is completed. If only one file is selected it works but the rest of the cd/dvd is useless to add more to it. Their saying is Things Just Work. Well its getting to the point where everything has problems.

It seems Apple has changed their policy and business plan to increasing iCloud storage, sell something new or some other product or service. So that once we purchase the more expensive MacBook or whatever product, their mission is accomplished. And they no longer will support our purchases or correct what their software "improvements" does not allow us to do as we have for years. Has Apple become MICROSOFT 2.1?