Is There A Trick To Tell The MacBook Not To Access the Optical Drive?

Good Afternoon! (Or Morning, Or Evening...)

I have a MacBook Pro from 2006, model 3,1. It has the original Super Drive which has not worked properly for many years. The CD part works, but the DVD is non-functional.

The computer used to only spin the drive's motor when I opened the lid while it was sleeping, or on start up.
Today, all of a sudden, the computer tries to access the drive often- up to 3 or 4 times a minute. I'd imagine it is quite a battery drainer!

The access sound used to be short- perhaps 2 or 3 seconds. It was crisp & nice like when it was new.
Beginning today, the motor spin is about 30 or 40 seconds long and the sound is low pitched, louder & struggling. And it groans. I apologize buy I don't have a camera or other device to record the sound to link to this post. (Picture great grandpa getting up in the morning. Or, picture me getting up in the morning...)

The drive is empty and I even tried shooting aerosol duster into it. There was no change. After a few re-starts of the computer there was also no change. I also looked at Activity Monitor to see if there was a program running that might be trying to access the drive. No offenders were found.

To avoid opening the case to unplug the drive, I was wondering if there is a trick to tell the computer (OS X 10.6.8) to ignore the drive and not spin it?

Thanks For Your Advice!
Paul

Are you sure it's the optical drive that's doing the spinning and have you double checked that there's no CD or DVD in the drive, or even some label that might have come off or loose inside???

Hi pm-r
Thank You for taking time to reply. I appreciate your help.
For sure it is the optical drive that is spinning. I can put my wrist over it & feel the motor trying to spin. Actually, today it is even slower & louder and it is spinning for a longer period of time. (Sadly- more often, too)

Until you mentioned it, I did not think of a piece of label from last time I put a disk in (many months ago) coming loose to cause it. That makes sense that the old piece could have fallen into a trouble making spot. I have a tiny inspection light and snaked it in. I don't see anything in there. It sure was worth a try & thanks for the idea. I tried some more air duster just in case I missed seeing some debris. No luck- same symptoms.

I don't know if this helps the diagnosis, but if I push the 'Eject' button on the keyboard, nothing happens.

So, the mystery continues...

Enjoy This Day & Thanks Again For Taking Time to Reply!
Paul

Stick in a good disk but don't access it with the Finder or any app and see if it will shut up.

Just a thought…

pm-r said:

Stick in a good disk but don't access it with the Finder or any app and see if it will shut up.

Just a thought…

Click to expand...

Not recommended. It's likely that the disk will get stuck in there and then Paul will have another problem on his hands.

@Paul: Your best bet to stop the defective drive from spinning up is to disconnect its power cable. Unfortunately it means some disassembly is in order. (www.ifixit.com)

chscag said:

Not recommended. It's likely that the disk will get stuck in there and then Paul will have another problem on his hands.

@Paul: Your best bet to stop the defective drive from spinning up is to disconnect its power cable. Unfortunately it means some disassembly is in order. (www.ifixit.com)

Click to expand...

Never had any disk stuck in a slot load drive for long when one has some flat sticks with double-sided tape wrapped on the end and/or a pair of flat tweezers, or maybe a sharp whack on the disk opening side.

I was also going to suggest disconnecting the power cable, but as long as you're in there, why not just REMOVE the optical drive and replace it with extra storage, either SSD or HD? There's instructions on iFixit.com on how to do this.

chas_m said:

I was also going to suggest disconnecting the power cable.

Click to expand...

That's what I was going to say, too. I had to do that on my old whitey. I plan on eventually replacing the bad drive, which is why I didn't use it for a second HDD. I also damaged the cable on mine...

Thanks All For Helping!
I read the suggestion from pm-r about trying a disk, so I tried it since I had nothing to lose. I used a junk mail disk (reminiscent of the old AOL disks- They make great set up shims in the shop & body filler spreaders for tight corners).

Something must have come loose inside because the disk is being blocked from entering on the right side of the drive. I can't see what it is.

Today the little goomer is more active than ever. Almost non stop. So, I guess surgery is in order. This sounds like a good chance to do a thorough cleaning inside.

Since I'm opening the book, I'll shop around & decide about a SSD or new optical drive. I have lots of room on my HDD, but I like the idea of a no moving parts drive. On the other hand, I'd like to have an optical drive too. My USB one is really persnickity so I spend a lot of time pleading with it to behave.

Thanks Chasm for the idea of ifixit. Their directions are easier to follow than the ones I used last time I had to open the case to swap a fan. That's a nice web site.

Thank You Again Everybody! This is a great place to learn!
Paul

chas_m said:

I was also going to suggest disconnecting the power cable, but as long as you're in there, why not just REMOVE the optical drive and replace it with extra storage, either SSD or HD? There's instructions on iFixit.com on how to do this.

Click to expand...

Second this. Replace that malfunctioning superdrive with a 1 TB HDD for less than $100.

You can always try this old method… but it sounds like something strange really jammed in there…
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060814211608242

Thanks All!
Tomorrow I hope to finally have time to open the computer & unplug the drive. It will be interesting to open the drive & see what may have fallen apart inside. There's no inserted object, as the slot has been taped over since it first stopped working.

I found one command to enter in Terminal that may help others if they have a disc stick that won't eject: drutil eject

I tried Mac Sales for a SSD or HDD to go in the optical bay. They said there aren't any holders made for my Model 3,1 MPB. The agent told me the drive connection is Ultra ATA and that's the problem with getting a replacement. I tried searching on my own for one from a different vendor, but got pretty much lost in the process.

So, I suppose I'll get a replacement optical drive or maybe just leave the old one in there.

I'll post back of what I find when i open the MBP and if I find a SDD to replace the drive with. Hopefully that will help someone else along the way...
Enjoy This Day!
Paul

One place that used to be good and not too expensive:
http://www.powerbookmedic.com

I have the same problem with two MBP late 2008 models. Seemed to begin with Yosemite but has continued. Now running 10.11.3. Optical drive seems to try to eject a disk every hour or so. I've tried all the same things but no joy.

PGB1 said:

Something must have come loose inside because the disk is being blocked from entering on the right side of the drive. I can't see what it is.

Today the little goomer is more active than ever. Almost non stop. So, I guess surgery is in order. This sounds like a good chance to do a thorough cleaning inside.

Click to expand...

Like you mentioned after trying to insert a disk…it's possible something is stuck, bent, or broke in there. Causing it to think a disk is on there…and thus the optical drive motor is spinning looking for disk data to read.

Doing some surgery to investigate things is a great idea…and a great chance to do some cleaning (like you said).

- Nick

It all looks simple enough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi3v7X6BpAA

Until something goes wrong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1umIsplszt4

I liked the videos you linked, pm-r. Now I HAVE to do surgery when I open the computer. (Curiosity killed the drive... err... cat.)

Thanks, too for your link to powerbook medic. I bought a part from them once and service was excellent, as was the price. I never thought to give them a try. They are very god about their warranty coverage on used parts.

Perhaps today will be Dive-In-And-See day! (I hope)

Paul

Silence Is Golden!

I wanted to say Thank You to all of you who helped me out on this & gave great advice. I sure appreciate your help, as will others in the future!

Today I got a chance to open the MacBook Pro & remove the optical drive. Silence At Last!
Since I can't get a hard drive adapter for the bay because it is Ultra ATA, I'll most likely get a replacement optical drive.

The back of the keyboard section (top case?) has a bare metal rectangle above the logic board's connector for the optical drive, so I put some tape over it until I can get a new drive. (Because I wasn't bright enough to notice that the connector's ribbon cable can come out of the drive & stay in the computer.) And, I taped over the drive slot to keep dust out in case I don't get a new drive soon (or ever).

For fun, I opened the drive to try to find what was wrong. I haven't narrowed it down yet, but something is blocking the guide lever on the right and keeping the disc from moving it out of the way. Next chance I get I'll study more just for fun. That piece of equipment is an engineering masterpiece!


Enjoy Today!
Paul

BTW, your MBPro seems to be a 2007 model if it's a 3,1 model as first posted:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...k-pro-core-2-duo-2.2-15-santa-rosa-specs.html

Also, I just thought I'd mention that mounting brackets aren't always required and there are lots of Mac models running around with various drives mounted with good quality double-sided mounting tape and even straight duct tape!!!

And yes there's sure some good high quality precision engineering involved with those optical drives, especially when you consider all the proper alignment needed and the super micro small width of the data tracks.

If you have children, you may find they got a Lego brick inside there. They seem to be able to show up everywhere!!! ;D

If you replace the optical drive, this may help but the linked source seems to be out of stock.
See mayer's comments:
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/81208/Is+there+an+adapter+for+optical+drive


Edit:
And I don't know if this might help:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Apple-MacBook-Superdrive-Repair/

Thanks, pm-r
It's a 3,1 model & is mid 2007.

I sure am confused about the SSD in the optical bay. OWC told me that there was no compatible drive nor holder.
They called mine "Ultra ATA". So, I checked with Powerbookmedic. They also said one was not available, but didn't mention Ultra ATA specifically.

If I find a SSD that will connect to the cable for the old optical drive, I don't mind making brackets or even taping it down. But I am very confused about the proper connection.

I saw drives marked IDE/ATA and Serial-ATA, but not the Ultra ATA that OWC told me I needed. Do IDE/ATA and Serial-ATA drives work with the Ultra ATA?

Attached are 2 screen shots from my System Profiler before I removed the optical drive. One's the bus the drive formerly showed up on & one's the old optical drive. Maybe that will clear up the mystery? (Not to me- I'm as lost as can be.)

I sure appreciate the help you're giving me & the help everyone's pitched in with. I'm learning a lot.
Paul