Neil HughesAs first reported by AppleInsider earlier this month, some people have seen their drives fail in a ">range of Mac models. Numerous users have reported drives that fail to mount discs, particularly with the models "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E" and "HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N," though others reportedly have issues as well.
One person, who is a developer, has now said he was contacted by Apple recently regarding the reported SuperDrive failure on his Mac mini. A representative from Apple Developer Relations reportedly told him that the company was investigating the matter.
Previously, the developer spoke with the company's technical support, and was allegedly told that the company has not devised a method to diagnose firmware or driver issues with its optical drives.
"Apparently, they have been directed to treat every SuperDrive failure as a separate, isolated incident," the developer said.
Some have suspected that the failure had something to do with attempted installs of Snow Leopard, Apple's new operating system, due to a high correlation with the reported failures. But given that many users have said their drives were rarely used, it's possible that the SuperDrives were problematic all along, but were not accessed often enough for the issue to become evident.
The person had previously said that his Mac mini failed to mount any optical discs after an attempted install of Mac OS X 10.6. He also cited a colleague who had a similar problem with a two-year-old MacBook Pro, which displayed an error after an attempted Snow Leopard install and then stopped mounting DVDs.
A thread on the matter at the Apple Support forums continues to grow, with many users who attempted to install Snow Leopard to no avail.
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A thread on the matter at the Apple Support forums continues to grow, with many users who attempted to install Snow Leopard to no avail.
Bummer! So according to the last sentence, since they attempted to install Snow Leopard leaves me to believe that the user was unsuccessful in the Snow Leopard install and now has to contend with SuperDrive issues... that sucks!
Any honest developer worth a lick would know the driver for these two drives requires ROSETTA. Install Rosetta from SL's DVD or from Apples site and the issue of burn support goes away.
For those still on 10.5 and has an older Mac with the Hitachi or Mashusta drives (Pioneer's are in the new units which run an Intel driver).... Choose "Customize" before you select install and click "Rosetta".
Edit: This was found by me 3 weeks ago and reported to Apple, as well as two forum posts.
The matshita drive in my Fall 2006 MBP died a few weeks ago while burning a CD-R (hilariously, it was a copy of Windows XP). Thankfully, AppleCare took care of it...
I just got my MacBook back YESTERDAY because it was getting it's SuperDrive replaced. It was able to read, but not burn. I find this pretty hilarious. I feel like my MacBook was the final straw for Apple! (Well maybe not....)
I've been on the aforementioned thread over at apple discussions for a while and I am certain the majority, if not all, of the users experiencing the SuperDrive failures are having a problem that is not related to Snow Leopard at all. The fact is, many people do not use their drives that often, and many only learned they had a problem when trying to install SL from the DVD.
I took mine into Apple and had the drive replaced under AppleCare. (It's worth noting a few users reported that using a disc cleaner or compressed air solved their issue.)
Any honest developer worth a lick would know the driver for these two drives requires ROSETTA. Install Rosetta from SL's DVD or from Apples site and the issue of burn support goes away.
For those still on 10.5 and has an older Mac with the Hitachi or Mashusta drives (Pioneer's are in the new units which run an Intel driver).... Choose "Customize" before you select install and click "Rosetta".
Edit: This was found by me 3 weeks ago and reported to Apple, as well as two forum posts.