it's scratching my cd's

Hello all,

My new MacBook scratched the heck out of a CD when I gently picked it up while running a cd. It was importing to iTunes and then froze. I took out the Cd to see that it was scratched in circular patterns along the outside of the CD. After that, I put in a crappy CD to see what was happening. I lightly tilted the unit and you could hear it chewing away at it. This baffles me. It probably is the gyroscopic motion of the disk fighting back at the tilt. I got this laptop for my truck to run GPS software while moving offroad. This is going to create a huge problem. Is this something that happens to all laptops, or just the MacBook? Or, is it a faulty drive? Any portable CD player that I have had never would scratch when tilted.

Any help? This thing is not even a week old.

gerrrr!

This is the first I've heard of this, take it to an Apple store and show them what is happening they will get you a replacement.

--Cheers

could this be a slot drive problem? does it not handle the CD as securely as others?

g

Nope, my slot drive works fine. I think its just a dud.

You have to be carefull moving any laptop while the CD is spinning any suddem movement can cause damage to the disc. I usually aviod moving my laptop are move it very carefully when a CD is spinning in the drive.

How do people drive in their cars and have their laptop perfectly still? I found this odd that it happened when I picked it up. There are a lot of people with laptops in their cars, i.e. police. What is considered enough motion to allow the CD to slide in the drive? When I hold a portable CD player and tilt it, it may make the rubbing sound. I find it weird that this MacBook makes the same sound, but scrapes on the media part of the disk. It would make sense for it to rub on the outer edge. When you have a tray drive, the only place that the CD or DVD touches is the outside edge when placed on the tray. So, my guess is, in the slot drive there is not a saftey lip on the outside of the disk area to keep it from rubbing. Does what I say make any sense?

g

It did it again.... I started up my machine and gently lifted it up and set it on the table. The drive was running and I heard it rubbing.

I would like to see someone put a junk disk in theirs and "gently tilt" it and see if this happens to them. I have no idea what is considered abnormal tilt.

Arggghhh!

Um...Police don't use CD's. Just don't move it...that or just Copy the contents to a folder and run it from your hard drive.

Asoulintime1982 said:

You have to be carefull moving any laptop while the CD is spinning any suddem movement can cause damage to the disc. I usually aviod moving my laptop are move it very carefully when a CD is spinning in the drive.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is definately the culprit if you have moved your laptop, OP. Any heavy tilting will scratch it. I've had this happen If it's scratching it when you're not tilting it at all, take it back to the Mac store ASAP!

The XBox 360 has this problem as well. I've seen a number of videos where the user takes the box from one standing postion and lies it flat. It's designed to work in either position, but it would seem it's not supposed to moved while there's a disc in it.

I have to say though, the other posters do have a point, most users won't be moving their machines around too much while a CD is physically spinning, as these days almost everything runs directly from the hard drive and you only need the CD for an install.

But still, it's worth asking for a replacement (certainly if you're in the UK, you're entitled to a replacement, not a repair, because it's so new). However there's a good chance this'll happen on every one you get.

I think the problem doesn't occur in a vehicle so much because the motion is generally going to be up and down with the suspension. When you are picking up the laptop you are now tilting it. I don't think that it should happen when you tilt, but I am no expert on the subject.

I can not see why the drive would let the disc rub on the media part of the disc. As with a tray drive, the disc sits on it's edges before being picked up by the driving mechanism, thus having a plastic "rubbing area" in a safe spot while spinning. My guess is that with a slot drive, when inserted there is no area for the disc to hit against exept for the media part on the disc. This is an odd design that allows for this.

Since the ruined discs, I have loaded my GPS Topo maps to the HD so I don't have to run them while off-roading. The motion in the vehicle is more than when I scratched the discs in my house. The dirve might not pose a problem watching DVDs while on the highway.

If you take a portable CD player and shake the **** out of it while it is playing, it will not scratch the disc, even if the music stops. Why does this laptop?

Other than that, this machine is superior!