iMac G5 Wont Recognise CDs

Hey

I just bought a second hand imac core 2 duo 2.16ghz, 2gb ram in mint condition.

It wont recognise cds however it will work with dvds.

Any help for a solution?

Thank you

I have searched but not had much luck

Well what sort of CD's are we talking about, commercial, system software, computer recorded, and are the CD's CD+R or what? Have you tried running Repair Permissions in whatever operating system you are using, and if you have the original discs, run Apple Hardware Test extended over the machine. It also does happen that cheaper media does present problems and personally only use Verbatim discs. Also a good quality optical drive cleaner may come to your rescue.

bowden is

This is just a regular Audio CD purchased from a CD store. I presume either CD +R and CD-R. I have tried multiple disks and the same thing happens. How would I go about repairing permissions?

Go into Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, select the drive and run Repair Permissions. Is also possible you have purchased a machine with a wonky optical drive. Because of their thinness, iMacs use a slimmer optical drive which does seem to have a higher fail rate than a tower optical drive.

My iMac G5 after 4 years of use did the reverse. DVD's first would not burn then would not read as time went on. Most CD's would mount but some did not.

I needed a new optical drive. Bought it from OWC. This drive works better than the one that was in the iMac G5 out of the box!

Do try what Harry suggested first though. Can't hurt!

Well I just repaired my hard drives permissions and the same problem is happening so I presume I have a faulty CD/DVD Drive.

Is there a cheaper place than OWC I can order a new CD/DVD Drive?

Unless you get a used drive which I would be careful with, OWC is about the best price I have seen and they stand behind their products also.

13ebs unless you are experienced in fitting an optical drive in an iMac, it is not the easiest job to do. Consider taking it to an Apple reseller and getting a quote.

http://doctorhappymac.blogspot.com/2008/04/intel-imac-hard-drive-or-superdrive.html

Hi,

I have looked at the tutorials on how to replace optical drive and it looks dead easy? Is there something I am missing?

Thanks

Well simple ~ proceed!