AppleInsider › Forums › General › Genius Bar › Extremely odd superdrive problems. No file burning. New icons. I'd *truly* appreciate help.
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Extremely odd superdrive problems. No file burning. New icons. I'd *truly* appreciate help.

post #1 of 6
10/21/12 at 3:34pm
Thread Starter 

In previous releases of OSX, the CD drive "just worked". Yep, no kidding. CD burning was a cinch. From any app, just select "burn", be prompted to insert CD, and let'er rip. Done. Now, nothing but grief.

 

The system? MacOS 10.8.2. The box? 13" MBP, 4G, 2.66Ghz, SDD, with superdrive slot.

 

The symptom? This morning, we tried to burn a group of photos to a CD. We were informed the (blank) CD hadn't sufficient space. (WTF?) I opened the disk utility, just to be sure. (I shouldn't have to do this, and never did, before.) I performed a full erase.) Still, insufficient space. (Like, none.)

 

In addition, on my screen, I now have an icon for the system boot drive. (WTF?) Can't get rid of it.

 

As things are, my Superdrive is worthless. I suppose for now we will use thumb drives, but the Superdrive (passe as it may be) is still there, and I'd truly like to use it.

 

I'd truly appreciate some help: do we now have to format CDs before using (or buy a special app to use CDs)?

Reply
Reply
post #2 of 6
10/21/12 at 4:57pm
You can't format write-once CDs. If anything gets written to them, they can't be used again.

If brand new discs are showing as having no free space, you might have incompatible discs or the Superdrive isn't working. Did you recently buy a new batch of discs or has this just started happening with discs from a batch you've already burned ok?

Also, have you tried burning using Disk Utility i.e clicking the burn icon as soon as it opens and choosing a folder.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 6
10/21/12 at 5:12pm
Thread Starter 

This is happening with the same batch of CDs as we used before. I doubt a whole stack of CDs has gone corrupt. This is happening on two MBPs. I doubt both have concurrently broken their Superdrives. I tried (on both MBPs) using the Disk Utility to "Burn" a new CD. No luck! (Info in Disk utility says 0 capacity anyway... even though all apps are listed as usual as "compatible" and R+RW is shown.) Odd that disk utility will erase one CD (which implies the drive is working?) yet not allow burn to another...

Reply
Reply
post #4 of 6
10/21/12 at 5:17pm
Thread Starter 

FWIW when displaying the CD in Finder, what gets created is a (virtual?) folder with extension "fpbf". I have no notion as to the meaning of this extension.

Reply
Reply
post #5 of 6
10/22/12 at 6:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjpoblam View Post

FWIW when displaying the CD in Finder, what gets created is a (virtual?) folder with extension "fpbf". I have no notion as to the meaning of this extension.

Those are Apple burn folders. You can create them manually in the Finder using File > new burn folder. When you drag things into them, it creates aliases to the originals and when you hit burn, it will write the items to disc.

Try using the following app to erase/burn one of the CD+RW discs:

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 6
10/28/12 at 7:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjpoblam View Post

This is happening with the same batch of CDs as we used before. I doubt a whole stack of CDs has gone corrupt. This is happening on two MBPs. I doubt both have concurrently broken their Superdrives. I tried (on both MBPs) using the Disk Utility to "Burn" a new CD. No luck! (Info in Disk utility says 0 capacity anyway... even though all apps are listed as usual as "compatible" and R+RW is shown.) Odd that disk utility will erase one CD (which implies the drive is working?) yet not allow burn to another...

 

How old are they. Optical disks do expire so if they are a couple of years old that could be part of the issue. Especially if they are cheaper ones that used a weaker coating in the first place

Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Genius Bar
AppleInsider › Forums › General › Genius Bar › Extremely odd superdrive problems. No file burning. New icons. I'd *truly* appreciate help.