Do iMac DVD/CD drives fail after X time?

[mikebatho]

Hi.

I have 2 macs. My own which is a 2017 imac, and a slightly newer 2011 model which work have provided me with.

Neither have had - I would hazard a guess - a physical disk in them for maybe 10 years.

I've got an old DVD I want to digitise, and put it in the newer machine. It immediately spat it out. Doesn't even start to spin up.

Thinking lightning doesn't strike twice, I fired up the older mac to try, but it's doing exactly the same thing.

So I tried a few different disks... audio CD, another DVD, blank data and even a lense cleaner, but neither mac will accept anything.

I know this doesn't look good for the disk drives on the macs, but before I give up I thought I'd ask on here.

Is there anything I can try to repair the drives? Can time cause them to pack up and I have to runs some piece of software or something in terminal to wake them up again?

Thus far things I've tried from other forums. Open CD/DVD in system prefs as I push the DVD disk in, to see if that triggers the drive to detect the disc - no.

Wrapping a credit card in a wipe and pushing it into the drive to clean the inside area - no.

The old mac is on El Capitan, the newer one high Sierra.

Is there anything I can try?

Thanks.

 

[Jackbequickly]

The only problem I had with one of my internal iMac drives was it scratching the crap out of my CDs!

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

If neither of the older Macs seems to have an operating DVD/CD drive, I wouldn't fool with them too much.

Instead, buy a cheap EXTERNAL USB DVD/CD drive, and use that instead.
Would probably be little money and a LOT LESS time and trouble.

 

[mikebatho]

OP:

If neither of the older Macs seems to have an operating DVD/CD drive, I wouldn't fool with them too much.

Instead, buy a cheap EXTERNAL USB DVD/CD drive, and use that instead.
Would probably be little money and a LOT LESS time and trouble.

I know, but I need it to work before Thursday, and only really for this one job, so I don't want to spend a bunch of cash.

It makes an aggressive rattling noise before it rejects the disk...

 

[Fishrrman]

I don't think you're going to get this resolved (with the Macs you have) before Thursday.
Kudos if you can.

Are you anywhere near a public library?
Could you go there, and perhaps use a computer there to do the job?

 

[Blair110]

Hi.

I have 2 macs. My own which is a 2017 imac, and a slightly newer 2011 model which work have provided me with.

Neither have had - I would hazard a guess - a physical disk in them for maybe 10 years.

I've got an old DVD I want to digitise, and put it in the newer machine. It immediately spat it out. Doesn't even start to spin up.

Thinking lightning doesn't strike twice, I fired up the older mac to try, but it's doing exactly the same thing.

So I tried a few different disks... audio CD, another DVD, blank data and even a lense cleaner, but neither mac will accept anything.

I know this doesn't look good for the disk drives on the macs, but before I give up I thought I'd ask on here.

Is there anything I can try to repair the drives? Can time cause them to pack up and I have to runs some piece of software or something in terminal to wake them up again?

Thus far things I've tried from other forums. Open CD/DVD in system prefs as I push the DVD disk in, to see if that triggers the drive to detect the disc - no.

Wrapping a credit card in a wipe and pushing it into the drive to clean the inside area - no.

The old mac is on El Capitan, the newer one high Sierra.

Is there anything I can try?

Thanks.

I had two iMacs where the DVD drive went bad. Seemed to come out of nowhere too. The behavior you're describing sounds similar too--the grinding before spitting it out. Ultimately I bought an external DVD drive which wasn't too costly (around $30 I think.)

 

[dandeco]

The main video editing lab at my college's Fine Arts building got a bunch of 24" aluminum iMacs in the summer of 2009 (early 2009 model with 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo chips, 4 GB of RAM, 1 TB hard drives, and NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 graphics). By the mid-2010s, half of them had failed internal SuperDrives, and so they started just using USB disc drives with them to be safe. So it was no big loss in the summer of 2017 when we replaced them with 21.5" Retina iMacs (the summer 2017 revision where they brought back dedicated graphics cards) that lacked a built-in optical disc drive. (Now we're looking to replace those with either Mac Studios or M2 Pro Mac Minis combined with third-party UHD displays.)

 

[mikebatho]

Yeah.... I'm getting the idea there isn't a fix for this.

The only other things we have in the house at all that have a drive on them are the PS3 and PS4 and as far as I know you can't move files around with them.

Dammit!

Thanks anyway.

 

[mikebatho]

I don't think you're going to get this resolved (with the Macs you have) before Thursday.
Kudos if you can.

Are you anywhere near a public library?
Could you go there, and perhaps use a computer there to do the job?

Or public libraries in the UK seem to all have their drives sealed off so you can't put in disks or USB sticks. It's to protect them from viruses.

 

[KaliYoni]

Yeah.... I'm getting the idea there isn't a fix for this.

The only other things we have in the house at all that have a drive on them are the PS3 and PS4 and as far as I know you can't move files around with them.

Dammit!

Thanks anyway.

I haven’t done this for awhile but I’ve moved photo and self-ripped video files back and forth from a PS3 and a PS4 to a USB memory stick (the files are stored on a Mac and I wanted to view them on a TV via the PS). I think there is a file browsing/management app in one of the menus on the PS Home Screen.

 

[mikebatho]

I haven’t done this for awhile but I’ve moved photo and self-ripped video files back and forth from a PS3 and a PS4 to a USB memory stick (the files are stored on a Mac and I wanted to view them on a TV via the PS). I think there is a file browsing/management app in one of the menus on the PS Home Screen.

But is it possible to copy the data files off a bought dvd and transfer them onto a memory stick? And if so, how do I go about it? Thanks.

 

[Ste_S]

I have a 2011 iMac were the optical drive works intermittantly. They will fail over time, either due to gunked up sled rails, dirty lens or failing laser. First two the user can potentially service (I've not tried to take an Apple optical drive apart, but have done so on CD players), the latter needs a replacement laser.

However, I also have an external USB Superdrive, so I'm not overly bothered with trying to fix the internal one.