Optical Drive - Medium Write Error

[ThatKidMatt]

So I've been having trouble figuring out a problem I've been having with my optical drive.

Every time I attempt to burn a disk, at any available speed, I get a "Medium Write Error". I know that this can be related to a bad batch of discs but I refuse to believe that 2 spindles of DVDs and a spindle of CDs are all bad.

The drive will read discs, but it won't write to them at all - using either Disk Utility or Toast Titanium. Further, I have reason to believe that the discs themselves are fine because they work in other computers (including my sister's Unibody MacBook Pro).

I've attached some system profiler info.

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HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GSA-S10N:

Firmware Revision: A101
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Generic Drive Support)
Profile Path: None
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

 

[MacModMachine]

So I've been having trouble figuring out a problem I've been having with my optical drive.

Every time I attempt to burn a disk, at any available speed, I get a "Medium Write Error". I know that this can be related to a bad batch of discs but I refuse to believe that 2 spindles of DVDs and a spindle of CDs are all bad.

The drive will read discs, but it won't write to them at all - using either Disk Utility or Toast Titanium. Further, I have reason to believe that the discs themselves are fine because they work in other computers (including my sister's Unibody MacBook Pro).

I've attached some system profiler info.

-------------------------------------------------------

HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GSA-S10N:

Firmware Revision: A101
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Generic Drive Support)
Profile Path: None
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

sounds like your optical drive needs to be replaced.

 

[ThatKidMatt]

sounds like your optical drive needs to be replaced.

I figured, but I'm still looking for other suggestions to try - mostly because I don't have the money to buy a new slot-loading drive.

 

[nuncupatory]

Recently I had a problem with burning DVDs, and reading online I saw people recommend picking up one of those cleaning kits for DVD players (the kind that looks like a CD, but has a small strip with brushes underneath to clean the lens). A few people suggested a cheapie one from OfficeMax, so I picked that up and tried it out. Now, the back of the OfficeMax cleaner explicitly states that it will run on Windows but not OS-X, but I used it anyway. Sure enough, the next DVD I burned worked out successfully. Seems to still be working okay so far.

I'm not guaranteeing that it'll work for you, but if you're looking for possible solutions that are cheap...