[qyn]

The superdrive in my 15" MBP recently died. It sounds like it works (disks spin up, etc) but the OS does not recognize it (disk not mounting, unrecognized in System Profiler).

I can live without the drive and would like to put an MCE OptiBay hard drive in its place.

However, one of the requirements for the OptiBay is a "working optical drive-logic board connector." So how can I tell if the problem with my SuperDrive is actually the logic board connector?

When the drive first died, I opened up the MBP to make sure all the connectors were securely in place. I didn't see any problems, and I removed and reinstalled the drive just in case, but that didn't help.

One thing I considered is trying to pull the optical drive from my mini and see if that works in the MBP. (I heard they are the same drive.)

Thoughts?

[Full-Auto]

Chances are your logic board is fine. SuperDrives have an annoying habit of dying and in my experience have relatively short life spans... or at least a high failure rate.

I just recently had my 1.5 year old MP drive puke. I was torn between taking it to Apple and paying $325 to have them fix it or ordering a SuperDrive replacement off the net for $130 and doing it myself. I opted to do it myself and everything works beautifully.




So, as I said... I suspect your controller is fine - especially if you can hear the drive spooling up. Mine was doing the same thing then kicking the disc out because it couldn't recognize it. My logic board obviously turned out to be fine.

[mduell]

If you can't see the drive in System Profiler, you may be in trouble.