Taking sometimes failing optical drive to Genius Bar?

[Jeffrosproto]

Hey,

My MacBook has an optical drive that will on occasion refuse to burn DVD-/+Rs. I am taking it to the genius bar today, but I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on whether or not the Genius will fix it if it appears fine while he is testing the machine at the store.

Thanks

 

[MasterDev]

If it is under warranty, they will take it in and investigate it. They make try a few things there, but will eventually just take it in.

Then, they will most likely just swap the drive with a new one without doing any additional checking.

 

[Richard1028]

If it passes tests... probably not. Why should he? I certainly wouldn't replace the drive just to make you feel better.

I would take my most troublesome disks with me to the genius bar and keep trying to reproduce problem for as long as it takes.

 

[agentcircus]

Hey,

My MacBook has an optical drive that will on occasion refuse to burn DVD-/+Rs. I am taking it to the genius bar today, but I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on whether or not the Genius will fix it if it appears fine while he is testing the machine at the store.

Thanks

There's a specific search string that the good technicians will use to look for a failing optical drive. Depending on what store you take it to, they'll look for it. When I used to be a Genius, the first thing I would check for is "SAM Multimedia" errors in the system.log. If I found any, there was no need to waste time trying to burn a disc. A "SAM" error means there is a physical problem with the optical drive, and it has to be replaced. If you go to http://www.macbookupgrades.com, they sometimes post tips like that one above on how to troubleshoot your own machine before you take it into the Genius Bar. Good luck.

 

[Jeffrosproto]

Went to the genius bar last night and told the genius my problem. He didn't even do any diagnostics on the machine, just asked a few questions about when it happened, what kind of media, etc. (Could be because they are short staffed, according to the genius). They are ordering the drive and should be replacing it next week.