Member Avatar for kelbrooks

my 2 1/2 year old G4 iMac will no longer read DVD movies or music cds. when a disc is inserted, it spins the disc around for maybe 10 seconds, makes a few quiet, quick 'purring' sounds then ejects the disc. however, it will still recognize and respond a blank disc. for last little while it would only do this if the computer had been on for a long time but now it does it even after a good night's rest. any ideas or help?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by redage

Dani AI

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The symptoms described by — commercial DVDs and audio CDs spin briefly, make a quiet "purring" noise, then eject, while blank/burnable media are still recognised — point to two parallel troubleshooting paths: confirm whether the problem is OS/permissions-level (software) or an optical/hardware failure that only shows up with certain pressed media or under temperature stress.

A concise, non-destructive diagnostic sequence to apply before opening the machine:

  • Confirm the drive is visible to the OS (System Profiler / System Information -> look under ATA, USB or Disc Burning). A missing or generic entry suggests a lower-level hardware failure.
  • Inspect system logs while inserting a commercial disc (Applications -> Utilities -> Console). Look for I/O, timeout or media-read errors that appear at insertion time; those messages distinguish driver/OS problems from hardware read errors.
  • Use the built-in command-line tool to get drive state (Terminal):
    drutil status

    This reports whether the device is reachable and its current state; compare the output for a blank/burned disc (which is known to be accepted) versus a pressed commercial disc.

Interpreting results: a present device with repeated read/TOC errors for pressed media but success with burned media is commonly associated with optical-pickup/laser degradation or calibration issues (older SuperDrives can become heat-sensitive — the earlier intermittent behavior described is consistent with that). A drive that disappears from System Profiler or produces no log activity when a disc is inserted points at electrical/connection failure.

Practical next steps and cautions: if diagnostics indicate hardware failure, replacement of the SuperDrive is the typical solution for out-of-warranty iMac G4s; this requires careful disassembly and ESD precautions, so professional service is often the safer route. Note that and offered useful software/permission-level ideas — if those have already been applied without success, the hardware checks above will help decide repair versus replacement. Back up important data before any repair work.

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Member Avatar for yellow

1) Log in as a different user and verify that you can no longer get commercial CDs/DVDs to mount there.

2) Try a CD/DVD cleaner that you might use in a regular CD/DVD player.

3) Try

4) You may have to have it serviced, hopefully you have AppleCare.

Member Avatar for redage

activate your root account (start with OSX-install Disc/changing passwords)
restart regularily, switch user to root. having done so, every volume will be visible. on the dvd do an æ-I. change priviledges to allow everything. log out to
your regular account. Your DVD is back/mounted.

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