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TICKET ARCHIVE -> iMac G5 DVD drive stopped working
mikep480 - Mar 10, 2006 - 10:05 pm
Hello,
I am having a horrible time suddenly with my iMac G5's original internal slot load DVD burner...it's a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845, and I had no problems until recently, when it suddenly began acting strange. It began with refusing to use media it had previously been fine with, and has now graduated to not being able to finish a burn of a single or dual layer DVD at all. Using Toast Titanium 7.01, which is what I've always used on this machine, it will give me a plethora of different error messages all with the same result - disc failed to be written. The most interesting error yet with Toast was the most recent, which stated "The drive reported an error: Sense Key = HARDWARE ERROR, Sense Code = 0x09, 0x01, TRACKING SERVO FAILURE". I believed this to clearly indicate that there is a problem with the servo on the drive, a hardware problem. But I googled the message and found a TON of users out there with the SAME problem...and the consensus seems to be thatt it's NOT hardware...they reccomended trying disk utility to burn, and trying to burn from an image instead of just files. So I created an image of my data, attempted to burn that in Toast with the same results, failure at a random point in the burn process, and then tried with Disk Utility (version that comes with OS X 10.4.5) and it also crapped out at a random point and reported "Unable to burn "disk name here" - The device failed to respond properly, unable to recover or retry...".
No one out there seems to have a real solution to this, but some suspect the problem is with Toast 7.01 (some claim switching back to 6 solves problem) and some suspect that the problem is OS X 10.4.5 itself, saying they didn't have this problem in 10.4.x before .5. No solution works for everyone. Have you guys run into this problem before? I imagine other people out there have inquired, and maybe you know the real reason. I hate to fork over the cash for a new slot load drive and find out it doesn't solve it - not to mention despite the fact that my computer is 4 months old, Apple is not willing to consider replacing the drive (even though it's under a 1 year hardware warrenty) until I spend $50 to have them tech support it to determine it's broken...ridiculous. Pretty much means the warrenty is worthless.
So what do you think?
Thanks a lot for your time, your service is invaluable to us long time Apple customers (bought my first Apple in 1983...) who have watched their customer service pretty much go straight down the crapper. You guys are the best.
Mike Plouffe
I am having a horrible time suddenly with my iMac G5's original internal slot load DVD burner...it's a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845, and I had no problems until recently, when it suddenly began acting strange. It began with refusing to use media it had previously been fine with, and has now graduated to not being able to finish a burn of a single or dual layer DVD at all. Using Toast Titanium 7.01, which is what I've always used on this machine, it will give me a plethora of different error messages all with the same result - disc failed to be written. The most interesting error yet with Toast was the most recent, which stated "The drive reported an error: Sense Key = HARDWARE ERROR, Sense Code = 0x09, 0x01, TRACKING SERVO FAILURE". I believed this to clearly indicate that there is a problem with the servo on the drive, a hardware problem. But I googled the message and found a TON of users out there with the SAME problem...and the consensus seems to be thatt it's NOT hardware...they reccomended trying disk utility to burn, and trying to burn from an image instead of just files. So I created an image of my data, attempted to burn that in Toast with the same results, failure at a random point in the burn process, and then tried with Disk Utility (version that comes with OS X 10.4.5) and it also crapped out at a random point and reported "Unable to burn "disk name here" - The device failed to respond properly, unable to recover or retry...".
No one out there seems to have a real solution to this, but some suspect the problem is with Toast 7.01 (some claim switching back to 6 solves problem) and some suspect that the problem is OS X 10.4.5 itself, saying they didn't have this problem in 10.4.x before .5. No solution works for everyone. Have you guys run into this problem before? I imagine other people out there have inquired, and maybe you know the real reason. I hate to fork over the cash for a new slot load drive and find out it doesn't solve it - not to mention despite the fact that my computer is 4 months old, Apple is not willing to consider replacing the drive (even though it's under a 1 year hardware warrenty) until I spend $50 to have them tech support it to determine it's broken...ridiculous. Pretty much means the warrenty is worthless.
So what do you think?
Thanks a lot for your time, your service is invaluable to us long time Apple customers (bought my first Apple in 1983...) who have watched their customer service pretty much go straight down the crapper. You guys are the best.
Mike Plouffe
kellhound1 - Mar 10, 2006 - 11:53 pm
Hi mikep480,
I'd have to disagree about Apple support, first of all. They certainly have the best out of all the computer companies. But that's not the issue.
A few other macosx.com members have reported a similar problem to yours. I've researched their questions and come to a logical conclusion.
Your Superdrive isn't the problem. They seldom are. The problem is actually two-fold: (1) Toast 7.01 is unstable at best; (2) OS 10.4.5 is tempermental with Toast updates. That's why people assume it's one or the other, when in actuality it's both.
Switching back to Toast 6 does solve the problem, although you can see a significant increase in burn time. If that's not an issue for you, then stay with Version 6.
On the other hand, if you want speed, here are a few troubleshooting steps:
Completely delete all Toast 7 files on your machine. Use Finder instead of Spotlight for this. Make sure you delete the log files and receipts (~Library/Receipts/Toast.pkg). Then run a disk cleanup utility called Onyx (freeware) to clean all your files. After that, reinstall Toast 7.0. That might solve the problem for you.
And just to make sure there's nothing abnormal about your Superdrive, I'd like you to do the following:
A. Insert a DVD movie and have it run on your system.
B. Insert a regular CD/R and burn some Word files onto it, using disk utility.
C. Insert a music CD and have it play.
Furthermore, what types of disks are you using? Mac's currently have a difficult time with +R's, even though they will burn on them.
Let me know how things turn out.
Sincerely,
Vishad
macosx.com
I'd have to disagree about Apple support, first of all. They certainly have the best out of all the computer companies. But that's not the issue.
A few other macosx.com members have reported a similar problem to yours. I've researched their questions and come to a logical conclusion.
Your Superdrive isn't the problem. They seldom are. The problem is actually two-fold: (1) Toast 7.01 is unstable at best; (2) OS 10.4.5 is tempermental with Toast updates. That's why people assume it's one or the other, when in actuality it's both.
Switching back to Toast 6 does solve the problem, although you can see a significant increase in burn time. If that's not an issue for you, then stay with Version 6.
On the other hand, if you want speed, here are a few troubleshooting steps:
Completely delete all Toast 7 files on your machine. Use Finder instead of Spotlight for this. Make sure you delete the log files and receipts (~Library/Receipts/Toast.pkg). Then run a disk cleanup utility called Onyx (freeware) to clean all your files. After that, reinstall Toast 7.0. That might solve the problem for you.
And just to make sure there's nothing abnormal about your Superdrive, I'd like you to do the following:
A. Insert a DVD movie and have it run on your system.
B. Insert a regular CD/R and burn some Word files onto it, using disk utility.
C. Insert a music CD and have it play.
Furthermore, what types of disks are you using? Mac's currently have a difficult time with +R's, even though they will burn on them.
Let me know how things turn out.
Sincerely,
Vishad
macosx.com
mikep480 - Mar 12, 2006 - 1:09 am
OK. Thanks for the speedy reply.
I have done the three things you listed, and with Toast removed entirely and onyx run on my machine, I was able to burn an iso of a DVD video on to a DVD-R, brand Imation. However, when I tried to burn an iso of a DVD video that was 6 GB on to a dual layer, brand Ridata, DVD+R DL, it failed as usual. However, I was unable to burn even a single layer before so it is some progress.
I am able to play a real DVD (store bought movie) on my machine with no problems. I am able to play a real (again store bought) music CD in iTunes, no problem. And it burned a few pdf and word files onto a blank CD in the finder with no hassles.
However, it's worth mentioning that while it burned a single layer DVD-R brand imation, it will not even recognize a DVD-R by memorex as a blank DVD, and prior to having these issues with burning all of a sudden, I successfully burned about 30 of these DVDs off the same spindle that I tried using now. When I insert the DVD into the drive, it spins up and down for ~30 seconds and finally ejects it with no error messages. And they worked fine before.
So that's where I stand now. Where do we go from here?
Thanks a million,
Mike Plouffe
I have done the three things you listed, and with Toast removed entirely and onyx run on my machine, I was able to burn an iso of a DVD video on to a DVD-R, brand Imation. However, when I tried to burn an iso of a DVD video that was 6 GB on to a dual layer, brand Ridata, DVD+R DL, it failed as usual. However, I was unable to burn even a single layer before so it is some progress.
I am able to play a real DVD (store bought movie) on my machine with no problems. I am able to play a real (again store bought) music CD in iTunes, no problem. And it burned a few pdf and word files onto a blank CD in the finder with no hassles.
However, it's worth mentioning that while it burned a single layer DVD-R brand imation, it will not even recognize a DVD-R by memorex as a blank DVD, and prior to having these issues with burning all of a sudden, I successfully burned about 30 of these DVDs off the same spindle that I tried using now. When I insert the DVD into the drive, it spins up and down for ~30 seconds and finally ejects it with no error messages. And they worked fine before.
So that's where I stand now. Where do we go from here?
Thanks a million,
Mike Plouffe
kellhound1 - Mar 12, 2006 - 1:41 am
Hi Mike,
Just before this whole issue sprang up, did you install any OS updates? That might be the catalyst. The 10.4.4 and 10.4.5 updates are causing severe problems for many users. The most common issue at the moment is Firewire connection failures.
I've dealt with your type of circumstance before on my own machine. Switching to a different disk usually solved the problem. And when it didn't, a reboot took care of it.
I don't think anything is wrong with your Superdrive. You wouldn't be able to watch movies or listen to music if there was a problem.
I'm guessing there's a firmware issue here. Install the firmware update from http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...iveupdate.html.
Other than these steps, there's really nothing more we can do. If the firmware update doesn't take care of the issue, I suggest taking your iMac to the nearest Apple store to have an Apple Genius check it out.
Let me know how things turn out.
Sincerely,
Vishad
macosx.com
Just before this whole issue sprang up, did you install any OS updates? That might be the catalyst. The 10.4.4 and 10.4.5 updates are causing severe problems for many users. The most common issue at the moment is Firewire connection failures.
I've dealt with your type of circumstance before on my own machine. Switching to a different disk usually solved the problem. And when it didn't, a reboot took care of it.
I don't think anything is wrong with your Superdrive. You wouldn't be able to watch movies or listen to music if there was a problem.
I'm guessing there's a firmware issue here. Install the firmware update from http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...iveupdate.html.
Other than these steps, there's really nothing more we can do. If the firmware update doesn't take care of the issue, I suggest taking your iMac to the nearest Apple store to have an Apple Genius check it out.
Let me know how things turn out.
Sincerely,
Vishad
macosx.com
mikep480 - Mar 12, 2006 - 2:08 am
I didn't install an update immediately prior to this problem that I can remember, but I don't burn DVD's every day and I do updates as they come in on the auto-updater, so it's entirely possible that this is related to that. Perhaps I should try burning under 10.4.1 and see if that fixes the problem. I will try another brand of DVD DLs and see if that helps, but it is certainly frusterating.
I will see if getting my hands on a copy of Toast 6 will help this issue, and tomorrow I plan on trying to burn on an external drive which is known to be good, and replacing the internal superdrive with one from a mac mini which is also known to be good. If those work, then I know it's a hardware issue.
Thanks for your help, if you see any potential problems with my testing theory (i.e. it's not a sound theory for some reason) let me know.
Thanks a lot,
Mike
I will see if getting my hands on a copy of Toast 6 will help this issue, and tomorrow I plan on trying to burn on an external drive which is known to be good, and replacing the internal superdrive with one from a mac mini which is also known to be good. If those work, then I know it's a hardware issue.
Thanks for your help, if you see any potential problems with my testing theory (i.e. it's not a sound theory for some reason) let me know.
Thanks a lot,
Mike
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