MacBook Pro not reading CDs

Hey there.

My MacBook Pro's (15" LED Unibody with a removable battery from 2008) Superdrive starting to act up, it no longer plays CDs.

I bought about 5 music CD albums but none of them show up on my MacBook Pro, I hear the disc doing something up but after a minute or so the discs get ejected.

I tried the CDs on my iMac and it read them in fine. The CDs are new and don't have any marks or starches so I don't think it's the discs.

I also tried to put in my DVD of Snow Leapord and that mounted and worked fine on my MacBook Pro and iMac.

Has anyone got any ideas on why CDs aren't working and what I could do to fix the problem?

DVDs and CDs are read by different "lasers" in the optical drive, so my only suggestion would be to try some completely different CDs (such as home-burned ones for example, or non-music CDs).

If you continue to see the problem, a "CD cleaning disk" or a shot or two (JUST a shot or two!) of compressed air may help. Otherwise, you may need to see a tech about this.

I have noticed that Mac's optical drives can be rather picky about certain brands of DVDs or CDs. I've had similar problems in the past which went away once I switched brands. If your iMac reads the CDs then try making a copy of the CDs on your iMac and see if it works on your MBP. Your CD albums might using a brand your MBP doesn't like.

Definitely try chas_m's suggestion of using a cleaning disk and see if that helps. If nothing works then you can also try buying an external optical drive. They are relatively cheap if you don't buy the Apple one. Just make sure to save the box and receipt in case it doesn't work so that you can return it.

Unless you really want to play your music from the CDs, you just rip them to your iMac so that you have it on your hard drive and then from there copy them to a USB flash memory stick or use a direct connection transfer such as target disk mode to your MBP.