Problem with G5 optical drive

On 2006/1/28 3:22 PM, "Ben" <ben.dot.smith.DeleteThis@ntlworld.dot.com> wrote:

> Robert Haar wrote:
>> The CD/DVD drive on my Power Mac is not reading CDs.
>>
>> This is a dual CPU G5 with the dual layer CD/DVD Superdrive. It had been
>> working with no indications of any problems. Today, I cannot read any of
>> several CDs, both commercial (data and music) and ones that I created on the
>> same machine. When I load in a disk, I can hear the drive clicking as it
>> tries to read, but the disk is never mounted and the drive door eventually
>> opens by itself. To make matters confusing, I also tried a commercial movie
>> at that plays just fine.
>>
>> Is there any kind of cleaning or adjusting that I can do without opening the
>> drive case? Are there any other test that I could perform to diagnose the
>> problem?
>>
> If it is reading DVD's but not CD's then it is probably the laser unit,
> cleaning will probably not help as these dual units have 2 lasers (DVD's
> use a different wavelength to CD's) but both share the same optical
> path, so as one is OK then the optics are probably clean.

Thanks for this explanation. I knew that there were differences between the
CD and DVD portions but did not realize that two separate lasers were
involved. I makes sense that something is blown with the laser for CDs.

I tried some data DVDs and was able to read them OK. That reinforces the
idea of something wrong in the CD portion of the drive.

> your cheapest option would probably be to replace it with a pioneer
> DVR110 / DVR110d as they work fine in the Mac (you may need PatchBurn
> for some programs, but the Mac will recognise and boot from it fine)
> Here in the UK the 110D is about £30 (US$50 ?) and would be a lot less
> than having Apple fix it,

The whole computer is less than a year old, so it should be covered under
warrantee. I would prefer to not have to send my computer to Apple for
repair. I wonder if I can get them to ship me a replacement drive.

>it is also very easy to fit (I assume it is a
> tower G5 and not a G5 iMac you have).

Yes, the Power Mac is a tower configuration. Swapping drives is something
that I feel comfortable doing myself.
 >> Stay informed about: Problem with G5 optical drive 

On 2006-01-28 23:13:35 -0500, Robert Haar <rlhaar.TakeThisOut@comcast.net> said:

> The whole computer is less than a year old, so it should be covered under
> warrantee. I would prefer to not have to send my computer to Apple for
> repair. I wonder if I can get them to ship me a replacement drive.
>
>> it is also very easy to fit (I assume it is a
>> tower G5 and not a G5 iMac you have).
>
> Yes, the Power Mac is a tower configuration. Swapping drives is something
> that I feel comfortable doing myself.

If Apple is convinced the drive is bad, they will send a new one, along
with a prepaid label to ship the bad one back. They will want a credit
card number so they can charge you if the old drive is not returned.
 >> Stay informed about: Problem with G5 optical drive