iMac doesn't recognise CDs and then spits them out...

[siritalks]

As the title suggests, my 2 year old iMac has recently decided that it can't detect CDs (haven't tried DVDs yet), but it literally won't recognise the disk.

For example, I tried to burn an audio CD from iTunes, put in a blank CD, the drive made a "chugging" kind of noise, and then about 10 - 20 seconds later, spat the CD out. I have tried this now about 20 or 30 times over the last few weeks with different brands of blank CDs (some with labels, some without), and it won't recognise any of them.

Anyone else had this problem?

 

[blueroom]

It's not uncommon for the superdrive to go bad. It's covered if you have AppleCare.

 

[siritalks]

Can they do a fix in store, or would I have to send it away? The reason I ask is that it is my work computer and therefore I can't really do without it for any length of time.

 

[blueroom]

I took mine in about a week ago. Took them all of 30 minutes as they had the drive in stock.
Wrote about it in my blog.
Superdrive repair

 

[lowercasej]

Whenever I've had similar issues with the superdrive in my late 2006 iMac, I've sprayed compressed air into it to clear away dust inside the drive, and it has actually solved the problem. I'd recommend trying this before bothering to get the drive replaced.

 

[jsgreen]

Same issue for my iMac Superdrive, which I gather is really common.

I had it repaired by Apple, they say they replaced it but after I brought it home it still had issues, and unfortunately my AppleCare expired.

So I bought a unit from ifixit and replaced it myself - that wen a little better, worked for awhile but then it also started misbehaving.

Best pragmatic solution was to buy an external DVD with a USB.

Not optimal, as it'd be nicer to be able to resell the iMac with all parts working - but oh well. Maybe I'll replace the Superdrive with an SSD.