I think my cd-rom died on my 1 yr old Macbook... just out of warranty

[theLemur]

For the last 6 months it was giving me trouble burning cd's. They wouldn't play right in my car, and now I think I know why. When I put cd's in the drive now, the cd-rom sounds like it is working itself to death, and never mounts the cd. If I tilt the laptop away from me, it gets worse, and if I tilt it towards me, it gets better, and will even read the cd at times.

Is this type of hardware failure normal for a mac? I treat my macbook very well, and rarely have I used the cd-rom. It worries me that something else more critical may die as well.

 

[BlueRevolution]

I've never heard that one before, no. It's clearly a hardware problem with the drive itself, so unless the computer was dropped it's unlikely that other systems are about to fail.

If you're feeling particularly adventurous you could find a drive or as-is computer on Ebay and replace it yourself. Any SATA drive with the right physical profile should fit.

 

[sheepopo39]

First off you shouldn't tilt the macbook while you have a cd in the drive because it could scratch the lens and then break the cd/dvd drive.

It possibly didn't work in your car because you didn't burn the cds correctly, I'd reccomend you'd check at an Apple Store first because you don't wanna replace the drive if its still good

 

[theLemur]

Blue, I'll probably get a dvd burner/superdrive from ebay, sucks that they are at least $80 though.

Sheepopo, The tilt is the only thing that gets it to work. I burned dozens upon dozens of cd's, and I spend days trying to figure out the cause. It's too much of a coincidence for this to be happening. When I try to play audio cd's, the music is garbled, and skips. It struggles just to play it correctly.

It's a shame that I paid a premium price for a product that's so prone to failure. My told me about numerous cd-roms that he had to replace in his macbook that was only a year old also. I think Apple needs to consider extending the warranty a bit.

 

[sheepopo39]

Well having a finished warranty doesn't mean you can't get it fixed by Apple, you'll just have to pay. Thought you can't anymore, you could've gotten Applecare Warranty which lasts for 3 years, though I still recommend having Apple take a look at it.