Apple investigating alleged issues with SuperDrives
As scattered reports of failing SuperDrives across the Mac lineup continue to grow, Apple has reportedly begun to investigate the matter by contacting at least one user.
As 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.
As 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.
Comments
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!
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.
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.
Adi
The replacement has been fine so far...
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...
Apple should just roll Applecare into the prices of their products. Those too cheap to buy it are the ones screaming the loudest when something fails out of the one year warranty period.
One more point: If you look at the related apple discussions (http://discussions.apple.com/forum.j...D=1154&start=0), the view/post count for the threads directly related to this issue are pretty high: 37,607 views, 26,956, 20,788... That would imply that there are whole lot of us out there with the same problem. I wonder how an issue escalates from a 'isolated incidents' to something that they will cover for users out of warranty? Does anyone know?
You can't equate "views" with people having issues. That's ridiculous. Just because someone looks at a thread doesn't mean they have the alleged issue. Your statistical logic is simply wrong.
One more point: If you look at the related apple discussions (http://discussions.apple.com/forum.j...D=1154&start=0), the view/post count for the threads directly related to this issue are pretty high: 37,607 views, 26,956, 20,788... That would imply that there are whole lot of us out there with the same problem. I wonder how an issue escalates from a 'isolated incidents' to something that they will cover for users out of warranty? Does anyone know?
The number of replies does not equate with the high numbers of views. This is particularly true if you read through them.
A significant number out of the ~300 repliers are either from the same persons, have been resolved by various means that were not 'drive' related, and some because of bad disks.
I like the one where every other disk worked fine, but the MS Office Install disk.
In any case, I can't wait until Apple decides to just yank out these optical drives a la Macbook Air, and just make them available as a separate add-on. But optical media is still something enough people want, so it'll be a while . . .
You can't equate "views" with people having issues. That's ridiculous. Just because someone looks at a thread doesn't mean they have the alleged issue. Your statistical logic is simply wrong.
I agree. I meant that compared to other threads on the apple discussion boards, the threads relating to this issue have a larger percentage of views, which can either imply that people are either having the issue themselves (likely), or they just want to read about failing super drives more than they want to read about other threads (possible, but not as likely).
I use an external FireWire Pioneer SuperDrive because the full size drives are faster, quieter, and rock solid. No cheap mechanisms to fail when loading a disc. There were rarely any drive failures when Apple used the 5.25 size drives. Even my AppleCD300i still works in my vintage LC 575.
Even this thread has an ad for Mac SuperDrives starting at $37.99. What do you expect for a $37 drive? The other issue with burning is finding DVD media that can burn well, especially dual-layer. Memorex DVD DL+R are ones to avoid. I get so many failures with that media.
Maybe Apple should consider renaming these drives - SubStandardDrives, not only due to their 'alleged' lack of reliabilty, but also for their glaringly absent BluRay playback/recording capability.
Most of you miss the obvious. The slot-load drives are crap. Too many mechanics involved in loading the disc, etc. They are prone to failure at some point. Has nothing to do with Snow Leopard or Rosetta (SL has native Intel drivers). It was just a coincidence that people discovered their drives didn't work when they tried to install a new OS, because the article mentioned that most don't use the drive that often. Has nothing to do with the SL DVD.
I use an external FireWire Pioneer SuperDrive because the full size drives are faster, quieter, and rock solid. No cheap mechanisms to fail when loading a disc. There were rarely any drive failures when Apple used the 5.25 size drives. Even my AppleCD300i still works in my vintage LC 575.
Even this thread has an ad for Mac SuperDrives starting at $37.99. What do you expect for a $37 drive? The other issue with burning is finding DVD media that can burn well, especially dual-layer. Memorex DVD DL+R are ones to avoid. I get so many failures with that media.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm
Only buy the good stuff. I've been using Taiyo Yuden for years and had not ONE failure!! I am on a 2006 MBP. I get it only from supermediastore.com - free shipping.