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gemigene · Mar 8, 2007, 05:29 PM

Hi, I have an iMac 17 running Mac OS X 10.4.8 and I have a problem with my Superdrive (MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846).

Last night, I tried playing 2 store bought DVD's and upon inserting them, I could hear the drive whirring and ticking but to no avail, the DVD player didn't load. I loaded DVD player, inserted the disk and when I clicked on "play", i got the following message: "Supported disk not available". I then tried with VLC and got an error message also.

If I load a blank DVD, the drive spins for a few seconds then eject the disk. I then tried burning sample files on a blank disk and when I get the "insert disk" message, I load one then it does the same thing, spins then ejects the media. To test this further, I inserted my OS-X install DVD and it loaded OK (read the media).

I then tried the same but with CD's and everything was OK, read, write, play music CD's, etc.

Any ideas? Is my Superdrive failing after only 8 months of very limited use? Would cleaning the drive with a CD cleaner (which I never did) solve my problem?

Thanks,
Gene

gemigene · Mar 9, 2007, 02:13 PM

Cant's believe that no one replied to this. Hasn't anyone had a similar experience?

Like mentioned in the above post, why would my Superdrive read Data DVD but not a movie? Also, why won't it write to a DVD?

Should I bring it to a repair shop?

Gene

badsey · Mar 12, 2007, 08:55 PM

is this a region coding DVD issue?

-/+R +/-RW +R DL supported, are you using -R DL disks?

gemigene · Mar 13, 2007, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by badsey

is this a region coding DVD issue?

-/+R +/-RW +R DL supported, are you using -R DL disks?

Hi,

Wouldn't think it were a region issue, played that DVD a couple of months ago and wanted to watch it again but to no avail.

As far as the blank DVDs go, they're DVD-R, what's a DL disk?

Forgot to mention that before the firmware update (Jan 2007), everything was working fine and I could read and write DVD's and now I can only read DATA DVD's. And as I mentioned, I have no problems whatsoever with CD's Burn, read data or AVI's, etc.).

Thanks for the answer.
Gene

far200 · Mar 17, 2007, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by gemigene

Hi,

what's a DL disk?

Gene

It means dual layer?

Have you tried to reboot your imac first? then try the dvd. I had an error on my ibook where it would not read my disk after a reboot all was fine.

samwhitby · Apr 1, 2007, 02:16 PM

Hi,

I am having a similar problem, its with a superdrive too. I have had my iMac about 1 and half months from new and any CD or DVD that I put into the drive it simply buzz's twice and then ejects the disk on its own. It is rather strange as I had imported about 10 CDs previous to the problem occuring, I tried calling apple today but they were shut so will try again tomorrow.

Any ideas people have would help alot!!

mfbernstein · Apr 2, 2007, 02:55 PM

Yours won't read any disks. That's pretty definitely a hardware defect. You're under warranty so take it in and Apple should replace it.

In the OP's case, it's more ambiguous, although if both store bought DVDs and blanks are failing, I'd guess that's a hardware failure too, albeit of a somewhat odder nature.