DVD/CD drive in Macbook pro not working

[Painter_Jane]

I have a mid 2009 macbook pro that hasn't accepted disks in ages. I can't get the hardware test of apple's to work. my boot CD doesn't work, and the one usb drive I have isn't bootable. So.... I'm struggling to figure out what to do. Is there a way I can tell if maybe somehow the drivers got deleted for it or something? If you push the CD in nothing happens. there's no resistance where it grabs the disk or anything. And I searched for CD and DVD drive in the system pref and it gave me an error saying I couldn't access it. I don't know if there's supposed to be a section for the dvd player in system preferences but I haven't found it. Is there a way to download drivers for it and see if that works? this is what the system report says...Thanks for any help you might have!!! I'm running a Macbookpro5,4

 

[/V\acpower]

What do you mean "The only usb drive I have isn't bootable", being bootable is about what is stored on the drive itself, not a property of the hardware itself. (Which mean you could create a bootable USB Drive from OS X and then use it to boot your computer)

Also, about the drive, honestly it is very likely that the drive is just (physically) dead. DVD drive are very fragile (my 2007 MBP got 2 drive replacement in the 3 years I owned it).

If it was my computer, i'd open it and remove the DVD drive and add a second storage (like an SSD).

Anyway, about drivers, in mac OS X drivers are not something you are supposed to install yourself, and I am 99% certain that the issue is hardware and not software.

 

[Painter_Jane]

What do you mean "The only usb drive I have isn't bootable", being bootable is about what is stored on the drive itself, not a property of the hardware itself. (Which mean you could create a bootable USB Drive from OS X and then use it to boot your computer)

Also, about the drive, honestly it is very likely that the drive is just (physically) dead. DVD drive are very fragile (my 2007 MBP got 2 drive replacement in the 3 years I owned it).

If it was my computer, i'd open it and remove the DVD drive and add a second storage (like an SSD).

Anyway, about drivers, in mac OS X drivers are not something you are supposed to install yourself, and I am 99% certain that the issue is hardware and not software.

Thanks for responding, When I downloaded the files for the AHT (because I wanted to see when my HD has been crashing and figure out what's wrong with my CD drive. I loaded the unzipped DMG file onto my USB after reformatting it as OS extended journaled or whatev and then I told went into systempref - startup disk and the thumb drive did not show up as something I could boot from. Then I tried from the same menu to go into target disk mode restart and it didn't show up there either. I have the original disc that came with my computer with leopard on it so I put that in and tried to boot from that to get to the AHT.... THe screen never came up. followed all the directions for holding down D right after the tone as it was starting up and held it down the whole time. computer started up normally. EVERY way I tried to get into AHT it wouldn't start. So I read that maybe I had the password/security set so that you can't go into AHT but nope. NO password or security issues lol. So I'm struggling to figure out what to do. I do have a usb cd/dvd reader and writer. SO I HAVE been considering putting another hard drive in. I currently have a 250gb SSD in here that I upgraded because my other one was a regular hard drive and I needed something faster. I also upgraded to the max 8gb of ram recently. I use a 1 tb external hard drive for all my photos and big files (I'm a digital artist and work with VERY large files. I also have a tb of space on google drive and the same on icloud. I"d still like to put a bigger drive in the computer but really I have enough storage. it's just the big apps like Corel Painter and Photoshop and Sketchbook pro... I deleted most of my music now that I use streaming mostly so I don't have a lot that I keep on here. but I'd like to have the simplicity of not having a ton of usb cords sticking around lol. I am using my wacom and loading my work onto CD's for Clients and just wires everywhere lol. trying to simplify. But I HAVE been considering getting a big hard drive to put in this but I'm not sure if I should get another SSD or go for a regular drive. So Lots to think about !!! Its much cheaper to get an external 3 or 4 tb hard drive though. I can't afford to put a 800$ hard drive in the optical spot. I'd rather just fix or replace my current one. Are they easy to install? THe hard drive and memory were insanely easy. (Other than trying to figure out how to copy all of my files. I couldn't figure out at first how to start from a time machine back up. SOrry this is turning into a novel. I fixed all that. Now I just wanna do the firmware reinstall and see if that works. I found that. Loaded it onto a CD but don't know how to get it installed at this point because I don't have the app they said is required on the mac website (Firmware reinstall app)

 

[MacInTO]

If it doesn't make a sound when the machine starts, the drive is probably done.

 

[Harmonious Zen]

OP, what’s this “DVD drive” you speak of and how does one operate it?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
First, please use paragraphs when you post.
Quite frankly, I'm having a hard time trying to decipher what it is you're trying to tell us.

First question:
Does the MacBook Pro boot on its own?

If you can boot but the DVD drive no longer works, that's one thing.
If you can't boot at all, that's another.

If you can't boot at all, do you have access to A DIFFERENT Mac?
How are you communicating with us now?

DVD drives in the MacBooks can be quite flaky -- sometimes they'll just quit working.
If you need the ability to read/write to DVD or CD, sometimes it's just easier to spend $25 and buy an external USB DVD/CD drive.

If the MacBook won't boot at all, and...
- you don't have a bootable external drive, and...
- you can't boot from the DVD drive (not working)

... the perhaps the best solution is to go on ebay, and buy a USB flashdrive with the OS of your choice pre-installed. Folks sell these for around $15-20 or so.

I'd recommend OS 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard" for the MacBook.

If NOTHING boots it, it could be a bad battery, or a host of other problems.

If it boots and crashes randomly, perhaps the internal hard drive is giving out on you. It can be easily replaced with an SSD -- even you can do it with a couple of screwdrivers.