Is my Combo drive (rev c PB G4) dying?

[zelmo]

Last night I loaded a CDR into my PB to rip the songs into iTunes. The CDR got about 75% through, then my drive spun down to a stop and started making clicking noises. I had to force quit iTunes, then restart the PB to eject the cd.
I tried another CDR (diffferent manufacturer) with the same result.
I put in a game CD - played fine, ejected fine.
I put in a DVD - played fine, ejected fine.
I put in a store bought CD - imported all songs fine, ejected fine.
tried a 3rd CDR - same results as the other two CDR disks.

I'm at work now, ripping one of those "bad" CDR disks into iTunes on my Mac here. Seems to be going fine, so I am sure now that it is not the media, but the way my Combo is (not) reading it.

Unlesss someone has an insight for me, I'll be making a Genius Bar appointment as soon as the Towson store opens this morning (PB is only 9 months old).

 

[Blue Velvet]

Here's also something puzzling.

Went to rip a CD a couple of days ago, put it in the drive, spun round endlessly, made a few ugly sounds, couldn't eject it without rebooting holding down the eject button.

Rebooted from another hard-drive (also with 10.3.8). No problems at all with the exact same CD.

You're not running 10.3.8 by any chance?

 

[zelmo]

Yes, I'm running 10.3.8 on my PB.

 

[Blue Velvet]

So just maybe it's not the drive but some odd 10.3.8 behaviour with certain disks?

Have you got something else to boot from?

 

[zelmo]

I have a LaCie FW 160GB at home, but it is hooked to another Mac for storage. I could try that, but not until tonight. I think I'll head to the Apple store this morning to see what's up. It's a little slow here, and since I'm kinda the boss I can let me take a little time off.

I'l post after I get back (only a 7 minute drive away).

Do they replace optical drives on site or send them out?

 

[Blue Velvet]

Do they replace optical drives on site or send them out?

Don't know but would have thought send them out but just guessing.

 

[zelmo]

I'm back from the Apple Store, 5.9lbs lighter than when I left....
First off, they thought it must be the label I had on the CD-R that caused the drive to get unbalanced and stop, but one of the CD-R's didn't have a label, so that theory went out the window. Next, they thought that the CD player in my truck might be doing something to the disk, causing it to be unreadable in the PB (while still being recognizable enough for iTunes to get all the song titles from the database), and also still be rip-able in the other two Macs they put the disk into. That one sounded lame coming out of the guy's mouth, and hung in the air tentatively for a moment before the conversation carried on.
AAR, they have taken my baby away, and hope to have it repaired and back to me within a week. They do have to ship it out for the repair.
The tech asked me what was CTO on my PB, just in case they decide to replace it rather than repair it. It'd be nice to get a rev d with a fresh battery and assorted system upgrades, but I won't hold my breath. I have all my photo's and songs backed up, and I can reload all my app's. If there's anything on that drive I don't have a copy of, I won't miss it (until it's gone).

 

[zelmo]

Came home from work today to find a message from Apple that my PB was ready to pick up. That was damn fast!
They replaced the Combo drive. The PB looked good, everything back as it should be, all data still there, and the new combo drive ripped off the same CD-R disk lickity split.

Happy ending all around