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I've really had it. I hate iBooks's Combodrive

GimmeSlack12

GimmeSlack12

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 29, 2005
5,406
14
San Francisco
Pretty close to completely fed up with this piece of crap combo-drive. It just doesn't read discs consistently. Its still under warranty but I'm in the UK at the moment and will have to wait till I'm back in the states to take care of this dumb drive. Will an Apple store simply replace the drive? I don't want a new machine necessarily (unless of course they switch the HD for me).
If the drive didn't burn CD's correctly I would have had a fit a long time ago.
 
Are you sure it's the combo drive and not the CD's your using? The fact that you can burn proficiently but not read makes me think it's the CD's. If it's found that the combo drive is faulty, I'm sure Apple won't have a problem replacing it. Faulty is faulty, and I've known Apple to be pretty fair with stuff like that.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Pretty close to completely fed up with this piece of crap combo-drive. It just doesn't read discs consistently. Its still under warranty but I'm in the UK at the moment and will have to wait till I'm back in the states to take care of this dumb drive. Will an Apple store simply replace the drive? I don't want a new machine necessarily (unless of course they switch the HD for me).
If the drive didn't burn CD's correctly I would have had a fit a long time ago.
Click to expand...

Why do you have to wait till your back in the US? If you still have your Apple warranty then just ring Apple UK and get them to sort it for you. Just tell them you've moved house/continent. Shouldn't be a problem.

------- I don't know if this will help you but ---------------

Here's a good tip, I find ringing Apple customer care often puts you speaking to someone in India, they may be friendly, but they have in my experience always screwed up. They forget your customer number, lose track of you ever ringing them etc.... Just bad service. Theyre English admitedly is far better than my Indian but that doesn't make it good, the amount of times you have to repeat yourself is unbelieveable.

Customer Service should be easy. Your already pissed off because your over priced hardware had fecked up, it doesnt need to be exasibated by incompitence.

I found by ringing the Telephone number on Apple Store (your case UK) and then choose the option to speak to someone about aftersales you get to speak to someone in your own country and they are far more proficient at sorting out the problem.

I do this all the time if I have a problem, I live only an hour away from Apple in Cork, Ireland.. Speakling to some incompitent faceless telephone operative who has never seen an Apple computer let alone know how to fix one - just does not compare to actually speaking to someone who knows the product and service.

Cut out the middlemen and save yourself a headache....
 
I don't understand. How come Apple UK couldn't take care of it? Is it because you bought it in the United States? Me = confused. :confused:
 
I can't give up my iBook until I have time off of school. Although the combodrive totally blows, it still works after some coaxing. I need to run MatLab on it, and the student version only works when you have the CD in (lame, I know). So, when I go home for Xmas, I can then deal with my issue. Sure it might be the CD's, but it happens to often to ignore. A CD-ROM should be able to read nearly everything. I don't care what you say.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
I can't give up my iBook until I have time off of school. Although the combodrive totally blows, it still works after some coaxing. I need to run MatLab on it, and the student version only works when you have the CD in (lame, I know). So, when I go home for Xmas, I can then deal with my issue. Sure it might be the CD's, but it happens to often to ignore. A CD-ROM should be able to read nearly everything. I don't care what you say.
Click to expand...

If the CDs have scratches, no disc drive can read them reliably. :)
 
I recall a few years back in the days of G3 my Mac couldn't use verbatim cd's, it would just reject them.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
I can't give up my iBook until I have time off of school. Although the combodrive totally blows, it still works after some coaxing. I need to run MatLab on it, and the student version only works when you have the CD in (lame, I know). So, when I go home for Xmas, I can then deal with my issue. Sure it might be the CD's, but it happens to often to ignore. A CD-ROM should be able to read nearly everything. I don't care what you say.
Click to expand...

Well if the problem is your cds, why should we care about what you say also? I never had any problem with my combo drive in 3 years. See if apple change yours, then try it again with your cds, and then if it doesnt work, dont complain for something that is your fault.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
A CD-ROM should be able to read nearly everything. I don't care what you say.
Click to expand...

Yes...I shoved a pancake in my combo drive and it reads it fine.

This has to be one of the top ten most idiotic things I have seen posted here. If you have a disk all scratched , warped etc etc no consumer CD reader will read it.
 
wattage said:
Must have been made from scratch...My Bisquick's won't read for $h!t.
Click to expand...

:D

Crescent rolls, all the way. :) Plus the Pillsbury Doughboy matches the iBook.

Seriously, it is certainly possible you have a defective drive. If you do, then well...what do you want? I understand that you are frustrated. And clearly you are very angry.

But everyone with bad hardware gets frustrated. But Apple buys optical drives from the major manufacturers... so this is a problem you would be at least as likely to suffer from in an Apple as in anything else. If you're not willing to do anything about getting it fixed, then, well... again, what do you want?
 
Well, I'm not trying to sound like a total @ss, maybe just sort of an @ss, but I know if the discs are scratched that the drive might not read them.
And I know there are certain discs that a drive might not read. Like Verbatim, or Memorex, or CompUSA generic CD-R's. But the drive isn't reading my MatLab disc? And it has a tough time ripping a few brand new music CD's? This isn't right. In the past my CD-ROM drives have been my go-to device for copying my CD's that were too scratched up for my home CD player to read. I'm not the only one to complain about these drives. It isn't working right.

And you guys put pancakes in your drives and they work?? I would never do that. That sounds like a terrible idea.
 
Have you tried a good old CD/DVD cleaner? Used to do wonders with an old DVD player I had that always got clogged up by dirty DVDs from the public library or rentals.
 
The iBook is only 2 months old and I've not done anything in particular to make it dirty.

Do you really think it requires a DVD cleaner disc?
Would that make my pancakes run in the drive?
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Have you tried a good old CD/DVD cleaner? Used to do wonders with an old DVD player I had that always got clogged up by dirty DVDs from the public library or rentals.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go sticking those CD's with brushes underneath them in my combo drive now.....that might make the situation 100x worse. :eek:
 
Can any other machines on campus copy CDs for you? If so, try putting it in them and copying it to a blank and see if that can be read. Also, where did you get your copy of Matlab? I got a copy, (along with other software), from the EEE department of University of Nottingham itself. They only cost a few quid and if you have a similar deal, just buy another.

As for Apple support, just call them from within the UK, or pop along to an Apple store/Franchise and see what they say. The worst that can happen is you still have to wait until you are back in the US, but since you are already doing that, you aren't losing out.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
The iBook is only 2 months old and I've not done anything in particular to make it dirty.

Do you really think it requires a DVD cleaner disc?
Would that make my pancakes run in the drive?
Click to expand...
One dirty disk is all it takes... ;)

But, on the other hand, the lens might be slightly dislodged or something, in which case the cleaning won't do anything (though it shouldn't hurt either). If something is out of place service is your only (real) option, I'm afraid...

ITASOR said:
I wouldn't go sticking those CD's with brushes underneath them in my combo drive now.....that might make the situation 100x worse. :eek:
Click to expand...
How...? :confused:

If the lens is dirty/smudged that the only way (I know) to clean it.

And I've never had any problems with the cleaner on any player I've used them on. The brushes are actually very soft (or should be).
 
My experience with those cleaners is that they are simply a waste of money. And I don't like the idea of those things on a slot loading drive.

Its a 12" 1.33gHz iBook. For anyone that is tuning in for the first time.
 
My pbook's combo drive got stuck during an eject, the disc was no longer mounted or ejected. I had to send it to apple. I never found out what was done or wrong with it but it worked fine so no foul I guess.

A little off topic but it's all I really have to add.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Aha! An Apple store was just opened in Manchester. Now I can take my machine in to an Apple Store and see what they say. Woohoo
Click to expand...
Woh.. The coincidence... :rolleyes:
 
My combo drive iBook of about the same age (its about 3-4 months old) has the same problem with DVDs. They DVDs are clean and usually the iBook will start to play them fine but then they will stop and no longer work. This happened the first time I ever tried to play a DVD on the iBook and every subsequent time.

It is very annoying but I have a feeling that the problem affects all of the iBooks' combo drives.

Let me know how it goes when you take it in to get fixed, I want to know if it will be worth my time.

Thanks
 
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