Apple FW800 manual Optical Drive, Difficulty writing to optical media

Optical Drive

The optical drive does not accept CD or DVD disc (mechanical failure)

1.Verify disc is not warped and is a 12 cm circular disc.

2.Check that a small disc is not stuck inside, or other foreign objects. Remove drive from system to extract disc.

3.Verify disc is pushed almost all the way into the slot.

4.Check the optical drive flex cable.

5.Replace optical drive.

The disc icon does not show up on desktop, or a dialog box appears to initialize disc, when inserting a read-only disc

1.Verify the correct type of disc is being used.

2.Use Software Update system preference pane to check if there is updated firmware.

3.Try cleaning the disc. If it is dirty or scratched, it may not mount.

4.Try a different disc.

5.Replace optical drive cable.

6.Replace optical drive.

Difficulty writing to optical media

1.Verify the correct type of disc is being used.

2.Try a different brand or speed of CD-R disc.

Note: Some brands of 24x or 32x CD-R media may not work with the SuperDrive.

Note: There are two factors in the ability for the optical drive to write to media. First, there are varying qualities of blank optical media. Some media are made to such low specifications that the ability for the drive to write to it is marginal.

There are variations in optical media even under the same brand. Some brands source their optical media from a variety of manufacturers, so there may be variations in the quality.

Second, an optical drive that supports writing to a CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW disc requires a special writing algorithm for discs from different disc manufacturers. There are hundreds of disc manufacturers, it is impossible to implement writing algorithms for each disc manufacturer. Usually, drive manufacturers implement special writing algorithms for discs from major disc manufacturers. For discs that are not supported by the drive with special writing algorithms, the drive will use a generic writing algorithm to write the disc. In this case, the writability and readability may not be optimal.

3.Replace optical drive flex cable.

4.Replace optical drive.

Hardware Symptom Charts PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW800) Troubleshooting - 27