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Pismo won't play DVD's

J

JayDogg

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have a Powerbook Pismo with a DVD drive that won't play DVD's. When I put a movie in the drive I can hear it spin, but it never seems to recognize the disc. I've tried opening it through DVD player, but it can't find it. It's like the machine doesn't realize there's a disc in the drive.

I've checked the drive and it says it's a DVD player, and I'm running Jaguar (10.2.6 I believe). Anyone have experience with this, or have any idea as to what the problem could be?
 
Try the disks in other computers or a DVD player and see if it is the disks that are the problem. Also some older DVD drives do not support DVD writable formats. If CDs still work in the drive it should just be a software problem. I have a DVD that will not play in my PB G4 because it has too many scratches on it, but it will play on my less picky PC.
 
Love it - something doesn't work, repair permissions. Thanks applemacdude. 😉

Anyway.

I had a Pismo with the same problems. I had to eject the whole DVD mechanism, and the FIRMLY reconnect it. It seems that the longer the system stayed on, it would "forget" that the drive was there.

Also, some of those DVD drives are notorious for just plain expiring... They just wear out after a few years. Sorry, I hope that's not the case with you.

I know MCE sells various expansion bay drives.
 
Re: Pismo won't play DVD's

Originally posted by JayDogg
I have a Powerbook Pismo with a DVD drive that won't play DVD's. When I put a movie in the drive I can hear it spin, but it never seems to recognize the disc. I've tried opening it through DVD player, but it can't find it. It's like the machine doesn't realize there's a disc in the drive.

I've checked the drive and it says it's a DVD player, and I'm running Jaguar (10.2.6 I believe). Anyone have experience with this, or have any idea as to what the problem could be?
Click to expand...

does it work with a regular cd/cdr?
my guess is that it'll work with a regular cd/cdrom, will work occasionally with cdr's and not with dvd's. If this is the case, then i'm afraid that your drive has died - a sad fact and it happens a lot 🙁
 
It works perfectly with CD's and CD-R's. I've also tried resetting the permissions - didn't work. I've also tried numerous DVD's, including a brand new one, but no luck. It really seems like a software issue to me. Any other ideas?
 
Originally posted by JayDogg
It works perfectly with CD's and CD-R's. I've also tried resetting the permissions - didn't work. I've also tried numerous DVD's, including a brand new one, but no luck. It really seems like a software issue to me. Any other ideas?
Click to expand...

get a cd lens cleaner, if that doesn't work then i would say that the drive's definately had it
 
I had a pismo, My drive s**t the bed after about a year and a half. I went and bought a cd-rw for the expansion bay, that was more usefull to me than a dvd drive anyway.
 
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