leopard installation dvd ejecting before installation

bbrown · #1 July 12th, 2008, 10:46 PM

i am currently running tiger on my 2.16 ghz intel core 2 duo macbook, and have bought the leopard upgrade. when i insert the dvd into the optical drive, it sounds like it's trying to read the disc, but then spits it out. nothing happens other than that. thinking it was something to do with the dvd itself, i went to an apple store where i bought it and replaced it with a new one. the same thing is happening with the new disc, but my computer's optical drive reads cds, movie dvds, and my tiger setup dvd just fine. i've tried resetting my pram and holding down c while restarting, but nothing seems to work. i know others have experienced this problem and would like it if i knew what they did to fix it. thanks

midijeep · #2 July 13th, 2008, 01:09 AM

Could have a bad disk. There was a period when Apple shipped some cherries.

MisterMe · #3 July 13th, 2008, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbrown

... and have bought the leopard upgrade. when i insert the dvd into the optical drive...

What do you mean by "bought the leopard upgrade"?

bbrown · #4 July 13th, 2008, 02:21 PM

By saying I bought the upgrade, I mean that I just bought the retail Leopard dvd at an Apple store to install the OS on my macbook. But could there really have been two bad discs in a row that I got, the original AND the replacement?

nixgeek · #5 July 13th, 2008, 03:45 PM

I think what MisterMe is referring to is whether you purchased the retail "full version" of Leopard or the retail "upgrade version" of Leopard. The former allows you to do clean installations of Leopard as well as upgrades from previous versions of OS X. The latter only allows you to upgrade from a previous version (not sure if it goes beyond upgrading from Tiger).

DeltaMac · #6 July 13th, 2008, 04:26 PM

bbrown - can you boot to that leopard installer DVD? Try it this way:
Restart your MacBook while holding your Option key.
When you see the hard drive icon appear on that Option-boot screen, insert your Leopard DVD then, and wait a few moments. If the disk appears, select it, and press Enter. Should boot to your Leopard installer.
If the DVD just ejects again, without ever appearing on the screen, then the disk is bad (yes, could be), or the optical drive needs to be replaced.
I have had problems booting to a Leopard DVD on a variety of Macs. It seems to be the easiest to 'miss' the boot, or just doesn't read the DVD properly. I think it's something to do with the dual-layer disk, and is just more sensitive to minor read problems than prior installer versions.

Take your MacBook to the Apple store, and let THEM try it there!

bbrown · #7 July 13th, 2008, 04:38 PM

it looks like i'm going to have to take it to the apple store and see if they can figure it out since that didn't work. thanks a lot!

jazzomattic · #8 July 30th, 2009, 05:08 AM

did you find a solution? Actually, I had that problem, took my mac in for service because i thought the dvd reader was broken. they said nothing is wrong with it. i took it home and installed, but then had some problems with another application. i couldn't reboot anymore, even from the leopard disc. it sounded like it was reving up and slowing down, again and again until the disc spit out. I then tried booting up from my old tiger disc- worked without a hitch. but i haven't been able to get leopard up again from the disc.