pb wont read disks

rparke1 · #1 05-27-2005, 04:59 PM

i have a tipb and for the last couple of weeks its stopped reading blank disks. sometimes itll work after putting the disk in an out 5 or so times, now that doesnt even work. whats a real bugger to me now is that its not reading many of the dvds or reg. cds im putting in. none are scratched up. i did the pram thing and i even pressed the little reset button insde the computer cause thats what was suggested to do on the apple website and its still acting up. any advice? if i need to get a new cd reader what would you suggest? internal or external ect. applecare has expired.

sidenote: instead of making a new thread

i have alot of photos on my ipod that i cant seem to access. only about 10 of the 100 or so are readable. any ideas on this?

sidenote2: instead of making a new thread

im looking for a new desk chair. any suggestions? gotta be comfy and very adjustable

**Mongoose961** · #2 05-27-2005, 08:36 PM

Have you tried to repair the permissions of the optical drive?

rparke1 · #3 05-28-2005, 12:28 AM

i have run disk utility to repear the persmissions of my ipod and the main hard drive, the cd drive doesnt show up on the list. how do i repair the permission of the cd drive?

the ipod issue is solved.

**Mikef** · #4 05-28-2005, 03:12 AM

CD drives do have a finite life, the laser output decreases and backlash develops in the mechanism, if yours is heavily used and over 2 years old then this may be a problem. Repleacement? - I'd go for an external as the innards are easily replaced and hence upgradable plus it'll still be useful if you move on from the existing PB. Downside is more lumps to carry round.
You make your choice and pay the price.

Mike

rparke1 · #5 05-28-2005, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike F

CD drives do have a finite life, the laser output decreases and backlash develops in the mechanism, if yours is heavily used and over 2 years old then this may be a problem. Repleacement? - I'd go for an external as the innards are easily replaced and hence upgradable plus it'll still be useful if you move on from the existing PB. Downside is more lumps to carry round.
You make your choice and pay the price.

Mike

if i went the external, which one would you recomend? if i went for the internal upgrade, which would you recommend? i do use it heavily, and i really love this pb. i do soundtrack work and music production. one more question. i know it says for my model pb, that it can only support only 1 gig ram, why? what would happen if i put in more than one gig?

**Mikef** · #6 05-28-2005, 01:33 PM

A leading question if ever there was one

, I have a souped up G4 Pismo which only came with a CD/DVD reader. When the price of CDs crashed I bought an external Freecom Travelmate, an excellent very portable (even ran off its own batteries) CDR writer.
Many moons later and the price of DVDs has crashed and I decided to get the Lacie F/W external drive. It's external, portable-ish but it probably weighs as much as the PB. I purchased this model as I wanted to be future proof for the next generation of optical disks - which I think will be the dual layer. In addition if the drive goes u/s then I recon I can strip the drive out and easily slot a new standard drive in.
So what drive do you get? I guess if you Google for internal drives I think you'll find a very restricted and costly few sources. If you can stand the extra luggage then the choice of externals is far greater at more realistic prices. What you have to decide is how much to spend and how future proof you wish to be.
My feelings on the future of optical disks is that the double sided disks are dead in the water, the next big craze will be dual layer 8Gbyte+, blue ray (20Gbte+) is on the horizon but currently very expensive with little software support.

rparke1 · #7 05-28-2005, 08:48 PM

is there anything that you can suggust about maybe getting a lil more time out of the drive? cleaning repariring myself (computer savy)

heres a website i found
http://www.sterpin.net/uk/cleaningcombotiuk.htm

if you guys dont hear from me ever again, may the force be with yall

update:
well im back. after 30 mins of following the directions and improving a little bit (his model is a tad differant than mine) my drive can now read dvds, cds, blank media and dvd-r. only format thatit cant read are already burned cds *shrug* just found out that the only kind of already burned cdrs are sonys and tdk, that i have. this is annoying because 3/4 of my burned cds are other companies. any ideas guys an gals?

**Mikef** · #8 05-29-2005, 03:26 AM

Should've said that cleaning is a short term option but usually means you're drive is on the slippery slope. The confirmation that the drive can read some disks but not all it used to after cleaning, indicates that the power intensity of the laser has fallen. Some dyes used in the creation of the reflective layer require more oomph than others, and many drives have more than one laser, IIRC CDR lasers are IR whilst DVD are visible red.

Sorry to say I recon you're gonna have to bite the bullet soon
Mike

**Mikef** · #9 05-29-2005, 03:51 PM

Sorry - I missed the bit about memory - that'll teach ya for posting a doublet

Again not a simple answer, the limitations are imposed by the hardware bit addressing and the firmware coding. Quite often you can put more than the specified maximum RAM and get away with it, my Pismo has 768M whereas the specified max is 512. How far can you go? I'm afraid it's a case of suck-and-see and there are three main issues:
1) What can you put in without the Mac crashing / freezing
2) How much can be put in and recognised
3) How much can be put in, recognised and used.
It is important to appreciate the difference between points 2 & 3, the OS when booting may recognise XX amount of RAM but running programs may only be able to access X amount of RAM.

I can only suggest you Google and find how far others have pushed your specific model

Mike