dvd not recognized on imac g4

F

francesco44

Registered
Hello folks

I have an imac G4 20" (Bowl) the DVD are not recognized anymore, nothing happens and they are ejected...But the CD works fine which suggest a soft problem more than a hard one (in a hard...the CD do not work)

I tried to reset DRAM and PMU....with no effect...

Does any one know a solution as Apple Support does not give any hint....except it is probably a soft problem....unfortunately I do not have anymore disk of my 10.3.9 version of OSX

Thanks

Piero-Francesco
 
Last edited:
Start while holding the Option key, until you see the screen with arrow icons, and an icon for your hard drive. Open the drive tray and insert a DVD that normally ejects.
If the DVD stays in, then, yes likely software.
If the DVD ejects after a few seconds, as it does at other times, then the fault is not software. Your optical drive uses distinctly different parts of the hardware for CDs or DVDs. Some functions can fail, such as reading DVDs, and other functions continue to function - or all disks might fail to read. You don't always lose every hardware function.
 
Thank you Delta for this very interesting remark....
I did according to what you suggest....After reaching the screen with arrows and icons...I inserted the DVD...the screen shows the watch....and then the pointing arrow...the DVD is not ejected....

But I do not hear the usual fan noise signaling the rotation of the disk..

Therefore it might be soft...I Hope

If you know what to do then....

Piero francesco
 
Things are OK....I did what Delta Mac suggested....then I rebooted and decided to check in VLC if I could open the DVD...Fortunetaly this was possible. Closing VLC, I had the good surprise to see the DVD icon on the Finder....

Impossible to say what has done the job...the Delta procedure? Opening in VLC?

After Some Googling it appeared that this failure happens sometime after an upgrade.

So a double advice...try the Delta suggestion...then if positive...try to open the DVD in VLC....

Hope you will have the same good luck...

Piero-Francesco
 
This is only a partial solution, the hardware works sometimes for some DVD....but many are not recognized...that is it is like if the DVD tray was empty...

In summary the hardware and software works intermitently...the worst type of malfunction....
 
If your drive only works sometimes - try cleaning the drive. Here's some tips:
Find some air-in-a-can, and blow blasts of air into the drive with the tray open.
Find a CD/DVD drive cleaner disk, and close the tray with that disk in the drive. It will turn the drive a few times, then you press the eject button, and then push in again. Do that 2 or 3 times. Try your DVD to see if there is any improvement.
If no change, then you should have the drive replaced with a new one.
I don't think that anything that you would do with software will help.

There's another solution: you can add an external drive. This is an example:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/
You can buy internal drives for less than half that price, but replacing the internal drive is very challenging, and I would recommend that you take your iMac to an Apple service shop for that replacement.
 
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