Superdrive woes!

[jackcsikay91]

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere. I cannot seem to find a definite answer to my question!

I'm a complete Apple virgin other than my 5s. I've been given a iMac G5 (20'', 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD - upgraded).

Anyways, my question is this. The superdrive is supposed to burn DVD-R & DVD+R, yes? Well, I've been trying with no success to burn something in disk utility.. I have a pack of brand new TDK DVD+R disks, alas none will burn.. I get errors ranging from: laser power calibration, medium write error, or the drive can't respond or something?

I tried Toast, same sort of thing, and error of 0x03 iirc comes up!

It burns CD-Rs perfectly, reads burnt DVD-R & DVD+R and plays DVDs great..

I've tried the compressed air in the drive trick - no luck
I've tried something about the international, changing language or something - no luck

Only thing I haven't tried is a different brand of DVD. But I'm not holding out much hope to be honest.

Anyone else had this issue, and anyone found a solution?

It's a Matshita drive and I'm running 10.4.11 (trying to update to 10.5, but can't burn the bloody disk!!)

Cheers!

 

[Bear]

Depending on what model iMac G5 it is, it may only be able to burn DVD-R discs and not DVD+R discs. A 1.8GHz 20" iMac G5 can only burn DVD-Rs.

 

[jackcsikay91]

It's a 2.1ghz, if that helps.

 

[Bear]

It's a 2.1ghz, if that helps.

That should burn both DVD+Rs and DVD-Rs. There's a possibility that the laser for burning discs is no longer working.

 

[DeltaMac]

Here's how you can check what capabilities your superdrive has:
Go to About this Mac under the Apple Menu.
Click More Info…
That opens your System Profiler, so click on the Disc Burning tab
Look next to DVD-Write, which will show info about what your particular burner can support. As was pointed out, some super drives from that era do not burn DVD+R - but will always burn DVD-R…
Early G5 iMac super drives may not burn dual layer DVD+R, but later G5s have that capability, too.

Your G5 2.1 GHz (has a camera on the front bezel, too, which distinguishes that model immediately), should burn anything.

 

[jackcsikay91]

If the laser was at fault, would the CD-Rs also fail in burning?

 

[Bear]

If the laser was at fault, would the CD-Rs also fail in burning?

CD-Rs and DVD+/-Rs use different frequency lasers for burning so it's possible for one to work and not the other. The same is true for reading CDs and DVDs - one could work and the other not.

 

[DeltaMac]

It's also a 9-year old burner, and if the previous owner burned a lot of disks, then the drive can be replaced with a newer, more reliable drive.
Something like:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MIMACSD8XDKA/
Not so simple to replace on your iMac G5 iSight model, but doable...

 

[Fishrrman]

The cheapest and easiest solution is to buy an EXTERNAL USB CD/DVD burner and plug it in. You can find these for $25 (US)

There's no point in wasting the time and effort to replace the internal CD/DVD drive in an old iMac if it's no longer working properly.