Optical Drive won't read disks

C

cameramandoug

Registered
Ok, this one has me puzzled. I found that my iMac G4 700 15" LCD, 40 GB Hard Drive, 512MB RAM, CD-R/DVD-ROM drive won't recognize discs any longer, it tries to read it, thinks about it for about 30 seconds, and then spits it out. I consistently spits out the same discs and reads a few, but I can't access them and the read time is terribly slow. Why? I haven't a clue.

I was using a Macally keyboard and I've now switched to an Apple keyboard and mouse. Could my drive be going bad? I opened the iMac up and cleaned out an ENORMOUS amount of dust! Could it be a driver? I haven't reset the PMU yet, waiting to do that last. Could there be a firmware update I'm unaware of? I ran software update and it's up to date, I'm running OS X 10.1.5 - I was trying to update to Tiger when I discovered the problem because it wouldn't read the Tiger install DVD. Honestly, I've never even heard of this problem before, so I'm essentially at a complete loss.

Ideas? Thanks much.
 
I would say that if resettting pram does not work, your drive is indeed going bad. Seee if your mac came with a cd tha thas apple hardware test on it, and see if you can boot to it, and scan your mac for hardware errors. Also, see if you an read the same discks that you are having problemes with on another mac or pc.
 
I tried resetting the PRAM - no luck...the Hardware Test CD will not play, it just spins for a while and then the iMac just spits it back out.

I haven't tried resetting the PMU yet, I'm saving that as a last resort.
 
I've tried some different disks and when I put in a factory game disc, I get a message that reads,
"This disk needs to be prepared for burning. Do you want to prepare this disc?"
It comes up as an untitled CD, buy it's a commercial software disc that reads fine in my other computer.
 
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