New cd drive

papajimsmooth

Hi guys, i bought a mac a while back and recently its hard drive stopped working, when i sent it out to dectek they fixed it up and said my cd drive also needed to be replaced, ii just got it back and now it wont accept dual layer disks, ie my leopard install disk. Is it possible to have a really cheap cd drive that its optical disk cant read dual layer dvds?

pvik00

Yes, that's possible. Also, if your machine is now equipped with a different brand/model drive, it may not read disks burnt with the previous one, despite the fact that it may be a dual layer DVD burner.

Before drawing any conclusions, read on.

You can check the brand/model of your drive and see if it's DL DVD or not by clicking on the Apple menu => About this Mac => More Info => Disk Burning and/or ATA.

If you're unsure, just paste the information you see there and I'll help you to investigate further.

papajimsmooth

MAT****A DVD-R UJ-857D:

Firmware Revision: KBVB
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

Its not a disk i burned before its the actual leopard install disk, it takes it in makes some noise but never mounts, thank you for your help aswell.

pvik00

OK, I get it.

Anyway, this drive is supposed to be a DL capable DVD burner.
It's probably the firmware that causes this problem for you.
Unfortunately I don't have the same kind of hardware myself but googling around I see that others with this drive/firmware in fact do report similar problems.

My tips:

1) Check out sw update, maybe there's a new firmware out there for you.
An interesting scenario just came to my mind: you may not see that there's one for while having your previous drive you may have downloaded and installed the most recent firmware update and the installer wrote it's package receipt. This way the updater thinks that you have the latest firmware update, as the receipt proves it, but in fact you're still on an older firmware as your new drive has just been installed and was never updated. Removing the corresponding package receipt - if any - may help software update to find, download and install the required one for you.

2) If there's no such thing around you can still try to use some patched firmware, for example the ones some people use to make the drive region-independent. http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php only if you really know what you're doing. With these tools you actually can flash back to an earlier firmware if that matches your drive and is proven to work. Beware, if you pick the wrong firmware you can do irreversible damage to it!
Also, if you use an rpc1 firmware you'll also have to use an utility to set a region after enabling the region-free mode.

3) You can read more here:
http://www.richardmondello.com/2007/12/27/macbook-pro-superdrive-21-fix/

4) You can take back the whole thing to the guys who swapped your drive and if you're not comfortable with firmware hacking, I think it's best if you do so. You should have some warranty to cover this, and if you tell them the things I wrote above I bet they'll know what to do.

Just to further diagnose the problem, what disks have you tried? What are your observations?

papajimsmooth

well i have used regular dvd and it worked fine, that seems like im having the same problem as in the link but i dont think i would be able to do that especially the part about irreversible damage. Would a new cd drive fix the problem or is it alot bigger? also how d i go about deleting older updates i tried google to no avail. Thanks again you have no idea how helpful you are

pvik00

If you want to experiment with removing receipts and re-applying updates manually, first you should remove the corresponding package receipt from /Library/Receipts and||or /Library/Receipts/bom. Do remove ONLY those ones that you are willing to reinstall, and never any of those that are part of the core system!

In case you don't find the package receipt for a SuperDrive update, then you should follow the steps to re-apply the latest COMBO update for your OS. This shall install all updates in a cumulative fashion and may fix your problem. It will involve getting rid of any package receipts for any incremental or cumulative OS X version updates and manually downloading the COMBO update installer for the latest version of your OS from the apple website. It's best if you don't let software update do it. Google will help you out on this, anyway.

Do have a backup you can restore if you get it wrong, then you're safe.

I wouldn't go and replace this drive unless I'm 100% sure it's broken and I think it is not.

So first I'd try the SuperDrive update, then I'd try some of the firmwares that are compatible with this particular drive. Again, if you're not comfortable with this, the guys who fixed your Mac in the first place should know what to do if you show them this thread.

Trev M

I recently dropped my MBP and my disc drive stopped working, Im gonna buy this ...says its compatible with Mac OSX so might suit your needs?

Im not a whizz on this stuff by any means so if anyone else can kindly jump in here and let me and OP know if this thing is ok.

Will I be able to install software on my MBP with this?

http://www.dabs.ie/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=56ZN&CategorySelectedId=11155&NavigationKey=11155&ExposedRefinement=11003&InMerch=1


Any advice appreciated

papajimsmooth

Thanks for the suggestion but my laptop is still in warrenty so ill just keep trying to get it fixed, think its ok now but wont be sure till the weekend till i can check properly