07-28-2011, 03:29 PM

I have battled this issue for about 2 years now, and found it to be a common rash over several forums, but I've yet to try this forum. I am very impressed with the community here and am hoping to make some progress.

My iMac Superdrive worked like a charm the first 2 years I had this iMac. I had no issues with ejecting discs, inserting discs, or recognizing any discs, be they CD, or DVD.

However, it was possibly after just a certain date, or a certain system update my Superdrive seems to have issues with spitting out discs after 20 seconds, upon inserting them. I'll sometimes have to try inserting the disc up to about 30 times or more before it finally decides to not reject it.

I have tried several occasions resetting the PRAM and NVRAM with these instructions from Apple:

Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM

However, it makes no difference.

What I find strange is that my iMac always accepts a Lens Cleaner CD... it's never rejected it.

All the CDs and DVDs that are rejected work fine on 2 other computers which happen to be PCs in the house, as well as they work fine on my Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, PS3, and XBOX 360 the first time reading them, so that tells me it's definitely not the disc.

Here's the final detail which is most frustrating though:

If using BootCamp, I boot this iMac into Windows XP, not a single one of the discs is rejected in Windows XP.

However, since this is an iMac and I bought it for using OS X and Apple software, I truly prefer to use OS X and not boot to Windows.

Are there any suggestions, or is there something I'm missing that may suggest this is a software / driver issue for the Superdrive in OS X?

07-28-2011, 06:24 PM

G'day and welcome to the forums.

If you go through those forums you will find many instances of failed optical drives on MacBooks, Minis and iMacs. May well be something to do with minaturisation of the drive as have never had a failed desktop optical for what it is worth.