Reinstalled DVD drive and now it doesn't appear in Finder, System Preferences, or About This Mac/System Report.

[mickey_strange]

Reinstalled the DVD drive and it doesn't appear in Finder, System Preferences, or About this Mac/System Report/Disc Burning, or seem to power up/work/won't suck in the disk.


Macbook is mid 2010 15"


Have tried:
NVRAM
SMC reset

Anything else before I buy another internal or external drive?

 

[AndyMacAndMic]

Maybe an obvious question..... but did you check the connections of the plugs and/or the cables? It happened to me more than once.

 

[mickey_strange]

Hi Andy,
Yeh I'm sure they're connected. I'm totally capable of missing that step so have double checked ; )

The DVD space had previously been taken up with a HD. At first when I reinstalled the optical drive, there was a CD icon in the Finder that called it Remote Disk.

 

[jerryk]

Double check all the cable connection on both ends. You might also see what the iFixit instructions are for pulling the main board out. You don't want to do that, but it should show each of the cables at both ends.

 

[Fishrrman]

A question:
If you power down (all the way off), and then press the power-on button to boot the computer, do you hear any noises from the DVD drive ...?

 

[jerryk]

Replace the drive data cable if you used it with another drive. The data cable is, especially old ones, extremely fragile and fails if you have installed a couple of drives on the cable. Luckily they are cheap, under $20.