2011 Macbook - Optical Drive issue

Hello all, I have a 2011 Macbook regular. I had an issue where the optical rive, after inserting a cd, would spin up then make a soft clunk noise. It would spit the cd back out. I tried many times always with the same response. So I bought a new opticlal drive and installed it in place of the old one. Before ressassembleing completly, I tested it and Mac OSX was able to spin up the cd and read it. After completling the installtion (installing all the screws back in), the cd drive only works 10% of the time. It only spins up halfway then spins down. Theres no clink noise like with the original optical drive. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Any ideas?

Andrew

Are you sure the optical drive you purchased is an exact replacement for the one you removed? Also, did you try cleaning the original drive before deciding to replace it? Sometime a blast of dry air from one of those compressed air cans can bring a drive back to life.

Also, did you try cleaning the original drive before deciding to replace it? Sometime a blast of dry air from one of those compressed air cans can bring a drive back to life.

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+1!!!
And maybe add a few spins with a CD/DVD lens cleaner disk.

Have you tried using different disks, and preferably use commercial disks to test.





- Patrick
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The model is slightly different. My original one was a UJ-857-C. The new one is UJ-857-E. I tried blowing air in. I haven't tried a DVD cleaner. I am using the Snow Leopoard DVD as my test disk. It can spin up and read the dvd about 25% of the time.

Unfortunately it will be a challenge to get the laptop apart this time. Some of the screws have finally stripped their threads and so they won't back out. I suppose I will need to use a pick to get them out if I want to.

At this point it seems like my best bet is to hope this optical drive just needs a clean out. I will get a cleaner kit. Any other thoughts?


The drive seems to be able to read the disk after computer startup (on either the windows bootcamp side or the Mac side). Then when I eject and put it back in, it can't read it the second time.

Thanks for your help. I'm trying to keep this old laptop alive.

Rather than tear apart that machine again, try cleaning the new drive best you can. Was that a new drive or one that you picked up that might have been used? I'm thinking the "E" model should work as well as the older "C" model as they are the same drive.

I wonder if there is anything related in this article or if any of the suggested solutions might work:
Exploring Widespread SuperDrive Problems
https://tidbits.com/2009/09/14/exploring-widespread-superdrive-problems/

Symptoms and Variables — These SuperDrive-related problems evince a few common symptoms: at some point, a user’s optical drive fails to mount optical discs, usually ejecting a disc after a short period of attempting to read it. However, the systems affected, discs affected, and timing of the symptoms’ arrival differ among users.

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- Patrick
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