Internal CD drive and internal DVD burner not showing up

I've just suddenly noticed that my two drives are not being recognized by my computer. I have a Dual 867 MHz Power PC G4 (mirror drive doors) and with Mac OS X Leopard. Lately, I've noticed that my hard drive has from time to time been making some funny noises. The DVD drive is an add-on. My Toast 6 Titanium also doesn't see the drives.

Could anyone tell me if it's a hardware or software problem?

Please excuse me if I can't answer any of your questions right away. But I'll try as soon as I can.

Thank you in advance.

What kind of funny noises is it making? Is the hdd spinning?
Is disk utility seeing them.

dbnoise said:

What kind of funny noises is it making? Is the hdd spinning?
Is disk utility seeing them.

Click to expand...

I guess you could describe them as some kind of clicking sound. Disk utility doesn't see them either. The hdd is spinning.

Try doing a hardware check. Put in your OS cd, restart and hold down d to run.

How about system profiler - I like using this utility because sometimes the device is available but a software glitch is causing it not to "work" but the system "sees" it especially after a software update.

Not good that clicking noise as usually indicated the drive is about to die,. Go to Disk Utility and see what SMART Statjus has to say about your hard drive?

I get home this evening and I boot up my G4, ready to try some of your suggestions, and voila, my computer sees my Combo drive and the Pioneer DVD-RW DVR 108 drive. There were two things I did yesterday that may or may not have done something to bring back my drives. Prior to my problem, I had gone to the application Image Capture preference to select where it says "When a camera is connected, open: No Application. I was getting tired of iPhoto launching whenever I synced my iPhone so I used this solution to keep iPhoto from launching. So I went back and put it back to launch iPhoto. This most likely had nothing to do with my problem but what I was doing was undoing whatever I had done prior to this disk drive problem. The other thing I did was repair permissions and run the daily, weekly, and monthly cron scripts with Cocktail.

So for now I have my drives back and I'm able to rip a new CD I just bought.

By the way, that click, click sound I've been hearing is more like a clack, clack sound. I'm prepared and won't be taken by surprise if my HD suddenly dies.

I'll post back and let you know if I lose my drives again.

Thank you for helping.

By the sound of things Repair Permissions did the trick. Quite a versatile tool under Leopard the Repair Permissions option, despite what you read about it doing nothing worthwhile at some forums.

Whilst you were in Disk Utility did you happen to notice the S.M.A.R.T. Status? If it says the drive is failing you can be assured that is the case.

harryb2448 said:

By the sound of things Repair Permissions did the trick. Quite a versatile tool under Leopard the Repair Permissions option, despite what you read about it doing nothing worthwhile at some forums.

Whilst you were in Disk Utility did you happen to notice the S.M.A.R.T. Status? If it says the drive is failing you can be assured that is the case.

Click to expand...

I ran the disk verification and I got error and failure messages. So I rebooted with my install disk and ran the Disk Utility Repair disk. It didn't completely repair the disk because as it got to the end it looked like it was going to go through some endless loop. So I rebooted and my problem with the Combo and DVD drive came back. I ran repair permissions and rebooted. My Combo and DVD disk drives are back again.

It's late night now and I'm going to try to repair the HD again tomorrow or Saturday.

harryb2448 said:

By the sound of things Repair Permissions did the trick. Quite a versatile tool under Leopard the Repair Permissions option, despite what you read about it doing nothing worthwhile at some forums.

Whilst you were in Disk Utility did you happen to notice the S.M.A.R.T. Status? If it says the drive is failing you can be assured that is the case.

Click to expand...

Harry,

I didn't notice what it said in S.M.A.R.T. Status but I did run another verification check with Disk Utility and it seems like the HD is ok. And it also seems like it's a disk permissions problem when my CD and DVD disk drives didn't show up. Using Disk Utility or the software Cocktail to repair disk permissions solved the problem.

Good work CrisTea. Keep coming to these forums - they are a great place!