[andyeb]

Has anyone else had problems with their Macbook Pro superdrive gradually becoming more and more picky with writeable DVD media?

I can read DVD and CDs fine, as well as write CDs, but I'm having more and more problems writing DVDs with the built in SuperDrive (Matsushita UJ-857). One by one, different brands stop working and now even brands that worked before won't write.

I've done a bit of homework online and discovered that this drive is pretty picky about media normally. But it seems strange that it should stop writing to a certain brand of disc half way through a 50-pack spindle.

Annoyingly, I had the drive replaced under warranty because discs kept getting stuck in it. The computer is now a couple of weeks outside warranty .

Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

Andy

[Zeeb]

Well, I had a similar problem earlier this year. I needed to read/write some DVD's and slowly the drive started to get picky about what it would accept. Most of the time, the drive wouldn't accept the media at all and would just spit it out. It never seemed to have an issue with CD's however. I took it to the applestore and they ended up replacing the drive--now it works just fine and seems to accept all brands. The broken drive is what made up my mind to get applecare--my MBP was still under warranty at the time, but the repair would have cost nearly $500 with parts and labor.

Sorry you're out of warranty, but I think a third party shop would be able to repair it for less(and probably upgrade the drive at the same time). If you're really adventurous, there are do it yourself guides on the internet. You should only attempt to take your computer apart if you know what you're doing--otherwise you could end up with a bunch of useless parts and lost screws. This may not be the best, but its a start:

MacBook Pro Disassembly: MacBook Parts

[andyeb]

Thanks for the reply Zeeb - sounds exactly like what my superdrive is doing .

I've taken many things apart before and got them back together and working, including PC laptop computers. But somehow, the process of taking apart my MBP scares me and I've heard quite a few horror stories too - most notably what happened to Alex Lindsay from MacBreak Weekly.

The options here seem to be:

- live with it and/or buy an external DVD writer for backing up

- buy one of those new blu-ray drives and put it in myself (risky - plus we don't really know whether blu-ray will ever take off and whether the price of blanks will ever come down)

- flog the entire machine to ifixit for parts and go and buy a new one

Paying someone else to replace exactly the same drive for 500USD doesn't seem like good use of money. Especially when matsushita drives are known for being picky about media even when they are working properly.