Video playback getting worse, and bad superdrive?

[meisterjager]

So the Macbook I've had since early 2008 started running a bit slowly, the worst thing being video playback. Stuff on YouTube is pretty much unwatchable now. I've been running the mac in clamshell mode with an external display for a little under 2 months, and it's been fine for the most part, but the past week or two has just been lame.

I ran Disk Utility, and upon verifying the disk, it told me that my hard disk needs repairing. Solution is to boot from my OS X installation disk and re-run Disk Utility. My problem is that my superdrive won't load my Snow Leopard disk. It takes it in fine, thinks about it for a minute as it spins up a few times, then ejects it. This happens every time.. I've just burnt an audio CD into iTunes with no problem. It may just be a problem with DVDs? Anyone have any idea if this a firmware or a hardware problem?

Any other ways to try and repair my hard disk? I was thinking of upgrading it to a new one anyway - would this cure the problem or is it likely to just get

 

[tug]

So the Macbook I've had since early 2008 started running a bit slowly, the worst thing being video playback. Stuff on YouTube is pretty much unwatchable now. I've been running the mac in clamshell mode with an external display for a little under 2 months, and it's been fine for the most part, but the past week or two has just been lame.

I ran Disk Utility, and upon verifying the disk, it told me that my hard disk needs repairing. Solution is to boot from my OS X installation disk and re-run Disk Utility. My problem is that my superdrive won't load my Snow Leopard disk. It takes it in fine, thinks about it for a minute as it spins up a few times, then ejects it. This happens every time.. I've just burnt an audio CD into iTunes with no problem. It may just be a problem with DVDs? Anyone have any idea if this a firmware or a hardware problem?

Any other ways to try and repair my hard disk? I was thinking of upgrading it to a new one anyway - would this cure the problem or is it likely to just get

try the original osx disc that came with the mac, if that doesn't work try booting from it, insert disc, shut down, boot up holding D at the chime.

 

[Detrius]

try the original osx disc that came with the mac, if that doesn't work try booting from it, insert disc, shut down, boot up holding D at the chime.

That won't work. As stated, the OP has a bad optical drive.


Boot into single user mode. Follow the directions that come up on the screen to run fsck. Then reboot.

Incredibly unlikely that this is your culprit, though. A bad hard drive, on the other hand, could cause both of these symptoms.

 

[meisterjager]

I'll try that tonight, thanks!

 

[ddehr026]

That won't work. As stated, the OP has a bad optical drive.


Boot into single user mode. Follow the directions that come up on the screen to run fsck. Then reboot.

Incredibly unlikely that this is your culprit, though. A bad hard drive, on the other hand, could cause both of these symptoms.

Could you elaborate on this please. I too have a macbook that I am trying to diagnose as either bad hard drive or bad optical drive. I'm fairly new to the mac scene so single user mode and run fsck is a bit foreign.

thanks