MacBook CD/DVD drive won't read discs -- can it be fixed?

Not sure that is going to happen as the original has expired. You can extend with AppleCare right up to the day of expiration, but not after.

An external would be the cheapest route.

P

"I was overseas and couldn't get to it until now."

Well, the MacBook Air doesn't have an optical drive, and it's set up to share drives with desktops.


I suppose you could look into that. As for the drive in question, replacing them isn't all that bad.

can be had for $147 if you fit it yourself. (It's fairly easy)

Failing that, you could purchase an external enclosure and put a full size DVD burner in there. It would be cheaper but not as portable.

P

It seems to be the common and right fix.

I agree with Bob. Any time I get something like this coming across my workbench, I just replace the drive. Not sure why it seems to be such a mystery to people that optical drives fail, and fail often, when they do fail so often. You'd think more people would have experienced it by now.

Of course the MacBook uses a slot loading slimline drive, and while it's not overly difficult to change out, there are some tools required the average person wouldn't likely have. There's also a small trick to removing the airport card mount without breaking the little grounding tab that connects to the optical drive. There's a different trick for the older non-unibody MacBooks, though replacing those drives is considerably more work.

So if you can actually source a replacement MacBook optical drive, just take your time taking the old one out and putting the new one in.

This totally worked. Thanks so much that was really irritating. I didn't even think about going into the disk utilities, and repairing the disk from there. Again, thanks helped a bunch

thanks soo much! i did lens cleaning and didn't work . thanks you saved me money.

You'll find some that spring back to life. They usually sputter and die later but we always try the lens cleaner and remove/reinstall the drive just in case it's a lens/connection issue.

But if you are at a service counter you never warrant the work if you don't replace the drive. You can't tell if the drive will continue to live on for long.
Bob

It's not every year, and if you look around, you'll see optical drive failures are common across the entire industry. Not sure why this is always such shocking news to people, but whatever. Optical drives fail, and fail often. Doesn't matter if they're the slot loading kind Apple prefers or tray loading like most everyone else uses, they fail. Usually based on how much they're used, and the condition of the media you put in them. You put a bunch of really nasty looking discs inside the thing, what would you expect but that the focusing lens for the laser gets coated with crap? Then again, sometimes drives can just up and die.

It can also make a difference on where you go to get your system repaired. Some places, and if they're an AASP they're not supposed to (and will get into some deep **** with Apple if caught), will buy parts off of dumpster diving vultures like MPD and Blue Raven. These companies buy up excess inventory from repair shops, and will buy up uneconomical to repair units from retailers like Fry's and Best Buy, then break them down for their component parts. Most of the time the parts are already on their last legs, and fail pretty quickly, but people buy them because they might be a few bucks cheaper than getting one from Apple. It gets even better, in that a lot of times a particular part has to be sent back DOA multiple times before these companies "retire" it. There's also frequent issues in getting them to send the correct part from what I've seen.

I know in the past, where I work, they used these companies before, and a good chunk of my job now revolves around cleaning up that mess. Pulling and replacing those parts as I find them. We have other arrangements with Blue Raven that don't involve Apple, and let's just say that they are not exactly what you'd call a well run company. Shame I'm bound by some confidentiality agreements, because they are some really good stories.

Anyway, I digress. Point is, optical drives fail, and fail often. Laptops are always going to be more expensive to fix because the hardware is much more custom made. I'd bet if you take a look around, replacing the optical drive in a Dell or HP laptop isn't all that much different in cost from Apple.