Mac Mini won't read cd's or DVD's

Some folks have had success "recovering" faltering DVD drives by spraying a little "canned air" into them (WARNING -- you do not want anything in the can except "air" -- I have heard that some cans of "air" have chemical contents as well, you don't want them).
This blows dust out and gets things working again.

I've also heard that it's NOT a good idea to use a "CD cleaning disc" with a slot-loading drive such as the Mini has.

If nothing will revive the internal drive, you can connect an external DVD/CD writer via USB. They can be found for relatively low cost from "the usual sources"….

I used a credit card + a microfiber cloth + some isopropyl alcohol.

put some alcohol on the cloth, wrap it in the credit card, and very carefully insert it partially into the slot with a wiping motion. This same issue happened to my 2009 Mac Mini, and doing this removed all the crud from the lens. It worked perfectly after that.

YMMV

Broken drive...

Hello,

My 2009 mini did the same thing - DVD drive conked out after a year. Probably explains why they've stopped putting them in. Your best bet is to get a cheap external one.

Cheers,

Ray

** Edit**

Or try cleaning as above

I had the same problem and ended up putting a new drive in. The one I got only cost $50 and I installed it myself. Not a simple job, but easier than the Macbooks I've taken apart.

As for the credit card and soft cloth cleaning method, I get the idea, but that didn't work for me. After pulling the drive, I inspected the lens and it was quite clean after all the effort I put into cleaning it. A word of warning: I damaged the fabric slot lining by getting too agressive with the credit card. Really should have given up on it earlier.

As for the new drive, it works great, but I had a problem with firmware not updating. It's the same drive make and model but fails every time I do a software update. I have tried everything, including posting something about the issue yesterday. I don't have a clue how to fix it and after 300+ views and zero posts, it would seem nobody else does either. Were I to repeat the process and assuming I was keeping the computer I would put an SSD where the optical drive was, set it up as a fusion drive and get an external superdrive.

I used one of the CD cleaners on an 09 mini. Did the trick.

If cleaning the drive doesn't work, get a data doubler or similar, yank out the drive and add a second hard drive for extra storage.

External DVDs are dirt cheap these days. You can even get Mac compatible Blu Ray writers for about £60 or so.

I removed the DVD in my Mac Mini and use it externally with a £6 USB to optical SATA lead whenever I need to burn anything.

CD Being Phased Out

Razzerman II said:

Hello,

My 2009 mini did the same thing - DVD drive conked out after a year. Probably explains why they've stopped putting them in. Your best bet is to get a cheap external one.

Cheers,

Ray

** Edit**

Or try cleaning as above

Click to expand...

--
My mini did it also after an update from Apple. My guess i they are fighting piracy AND moving you to the "CLOUD".
That's too bad... Since I'm a Graphic Designer I still give files to clients...
Bad Move APPLE.

MattA said:

I used a credit card + a microfiber cloth + some isopropyl alcohol.

put some alcohol on the cloth, wrap it in the credit card, and very carefully insert it partially into the slot with a wiping motion. This same issue happened to my 2009 Mac Mini, and doing this removed all the crud from the lens. It worked perfectly after that.

YMMV

Click to expand...

Hi, is the insertion of the credit card wrapped with the cloth done with computer on? or off? and how far into the slot should I put the card. Thanks.
[doublepost=1484006011][/doublepost]Hi, is the insertion of the credit card wrapped with the cloth done with computer on? or off? and how far into the slot should I put the card. Thanks.

Farley said:

Hi, is the insertion of the credit card wrapped with the cloth done with computer on? or off? and how far into the slot should I put the card. Thanks.
[doublepost=1484006011][/doublepost]Hi, is the insertion of the credit card wrapped with the cloth done with computer on? or off? and how far into the slot should I put the card. Thanks.

Click to expand...

When I did it, I did it with the computer off and made sure not to lose the card in the drive. Be careful, as there's stuff in there that can break. You're only trying to clean the lens, not need a new drive.