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jkramb

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 29, 2008
93
0
I have been loading all of my cds on my MBP and have been having quite a few problems. About 1 in 5 cds won't work in my computer. some the computer just spits back out, and some spin around and make a bunch of terrible noise. Also, i frequently have to put discs in 3 or 4 times to get them to rip to itunes. even in a cd box set some of the cds won't work. I have a 7 disc box set that has done nothing but sit on a shelf and two of the discs won't rip. what is the deal? do MBPs just have the ********* optical drives of all time? should i take it to the local mac store? i'm leaving the country in a week for 6 months and i can't be sending it off and having them dick around with it for two weeks. is it usually pretty quick to have a new drive put in? can they do it at the store?
 
I've ripped hundreds of CDs on my MBP.... never a problem. Of course they're all clean CDs with no scratches. You may have a defective drive, but as a whole, the optical drive on the MBP is a great drive! If yours is defective, I doubt they would replace it in a store.... you'd have to send it in for repair/replacement. However, you might be able to get them to ship it to you wherever you'll be. I'd call Apple and see what they say.
 
No probs here either. Make sure those cd's are clean. Other than that, you will probably need to send it in for repairs unless u can find a replacement drive and install it your self. Or use an external drive as a temp fix if your strapped for time.
 
Not So Hot Either

I ran into similar problems with my MBP super drive. I took it into the Apple store and they did replace the drive. It seemed to fix the problem, but later the drive started doing the same thing again. My best guess is that the super drive doesn't operate well after it gets hot (Importing disk after disk). I also had a G4 powerbook and it seemed that super drive was also finicky. The part that really bothers me about the whole thing. The same disk works on my girl friends MB, my Lenovo Thinkpad and G4 Power Mac, just not my MBP.
 
to my knowledge there are two types of Superdrives...

one made by Panasonic (Matsushita) and Hitachi-LG. I've had bad experiences with the Panasonic on my old 2.33 (the guy i sold it to called me back about it. Probably had it replaced under applecare), and the current one I Hitachi-LG hasn't given me problems yet (2.4 SR purchased in March).

Take it into the Apple Store, see what kind of turn around they can do. Depends if they stock the part in-store. You can also try a authorized service provider. They can often have a 3-4 day turn around depending on who you go to.

I work at a service provider and depending on the time we order the part (service providers do not stock warranty parts), it can take as little as 2 days to receive it. Depending on the repair it can take a day. A superdrive should be done the same day once the part arrives.

kind of off topic, but the smaller Dell laptops with slot loading drives also use the same type of drive, it sounds like a matsushita. My LG makes different noises on boot up than my old MBP.
 
hmm they may be good quality, but i've seen a lot of threads about problems with the drive and failure to "calibrate laser" or having a "medium error".

out of the two id stick with H-LG. Their desktop drives aren't too shabby.

the panasonic i had in my 2.33 wasn't even a year old until it started having problems. And i didnt even use it that much. I never took it in because sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I couldn't afford to live with the spotty reliability.
 
hmm they may be good quality, but i've seen a lot of threads about problems with the drive and failure to "calibrate laser" or having a "medium error".

out of the two id stick with H-LG. Their desktop drives aren't too shabby.

the panasonic i had in my 2.33 wasn't even a year old until it started having problems. And i didnt even use it that much. I never took it in because sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I couldn't afford to live with the spotty reliability.

Hmmm...I don't know about the differences between the two, but both of my failed drives, stopped writing but could still read fairly well... :confused:
 
I'm on my third superdrive and it's still finicky on burning dl dvds, urs seems much worse though, I'd take it in/send it in and they'll but a new one in there for you.
 
i think it has to do with the firmware these drives ship with. Probably doesnt have the write strategies for some media. I say some and not cheap because i had lots problems burning with TDK CD-Rs, which i think are of relatively good quality. I took about 10 brand new TDK CDRs out of a spindle and the computer spit out 7 of them without acknowledging they were even inserted. When you burn it either gives a medium error in the beginning or fails in the lead-out. This all happened on my 2.33.

extremely frustrating. But these slot drives have very tight tolerances. you can't even stack them because they're so flimsy.
 
WTF I just posted in another thread about issues with my Optical Drive.

This has to be a trend?
 
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