linux to an imac: 2005: replaced superdrive dvr-109::broken superdrive

It took about 70 minutes to replace. A fews days longer to upgrade the firmware with 1.55 and enable 16x writing. It certainly reads at 4x and makes a much louder sound initially reading. It was an inch or so shorter than the dvr-104.

2005-06-16 20:49 / broken superdrive »

Almost exactly three years and a month since I bought it and the superdrive's kaput. It doesn't read or write and DVDs at all - not commercial films, nor copied films, nor original copies of Tiger, nor data DVDs. Music CDs seem fine, others, e.g. Panther, don't work either.

All it does on inserting a disc is make a desperate ticking sound every five seconds or so, for about a minute, then spits it out.

Lots of other folk have exactly the same problem. They - and I - share their woes on the DVD Apple discussion forum. Alas so far not a single response from Apple. Cowards? Or just too busy choosing rollnecks and trimming beards?

Someone at Apple's online chat service did deign to try and help me. Alas it amounted to nothing more than the usual idiot advice of (a) try it with a different user (that after me explaining that it behaved precisely the same on boot), (b) reset the bloody pram, (c) take it in for a superdrive service, which apparently checks in at 50 bucks an hour.

The upshot might be happy though. For 35 quid I've bought myself a pioneer 109 drive. It'll write 16 times faster than the dead drive, it's the same size as the 104, and there are instructions here on how to replace it.