Broken DVD drive?

Ok I have a second generation 15" MBP (late 06 to early 07) and for some reason the DVD drive stopped working. It only plays DVD's occasionally and most of the time it just spits them back out. What's wrong with it and how much does it cost to fix/replace it?

Ran TechTool and VRAM failed the test the first time (with a bunch of other programs running) but passed the second time (with nothing running). DVD drive will read CD's but not DVDs.

 

Are the DVDs commercial one? Best bet is taking it to an Apple Store and let them sort it out for you (estimate and all).

cheers ...

 

Then it's been about 3 years, meaning your Applecare is probably ended or about to end. Time to upgrade!

 

Applecare ended 5 months ago. I was going to get the whole thing checked out before but I forgot. I wish I had the $3k to upgrade. I figured I'll keep holding on to it as long as I can with minor repairs (my 3rd battery crapped out-need to replace) until I start law school in 2012 (at which point I'm sure that 512GB SSD won't cost $1k....) lol

And yes, the DVD's were commercial (whatever that means). Didn't realize trying to play Boston Legal on my laptop would involve shoving my DVD into my superdrive 12 times

 

Ive has my DVD drive fail on my '06 MBP and my brothers DVD drive failed just recently on his '08 MB (white). Same thing happened to a friend of mine.

I dunno why, but it seems to be a common issue with these superdrives.

 

I didn't have any issues until recently....as late as 2 weeks ago it played DVDs. Now it just spits them out.

 

Really sorry to hear that, such a good screen to watch movies on.

Depending on the replacement cost, maybe you could considering buying an external blu ray/dvd?

 

Maybe I should do that. I'll look into it. thx

 

By then, 512 SSDs will be a fraction of the current price. I've been keeping tabs on the flash memory industry. Though I may not have as much information on key flash OEMs as your typical stockholder may have, it's clear that investments in new equipment and flash manufacturing plants are up. Expect Samsung and Toshiba to engage in a price war for the rest of 2010-2013. There's no way on Earth Toshiba won't do so after splurging $8 billion on that gigantic flash plant. Samsung's also just about finished upgrading its new plant in Texas.


Slightly OT, it's probably best you're not going to law school until 2012. By the time you graduate, the economy will be well into its recovery. I'm hoping for better job prospects in 2013.

 

if I were you I'd get an optibay for a 2nd HDD and then get an external optical drive...

or if you don't want or need a 2nd internal HDD then just get the external optical drive. Remember though that the Macbook Pro won't allow playing of DVD video with an external player right out of the box. MCE includes a patch (or is it an app?) that fixes that when you buy their optibay. Or you can download one of a few different dvd player apps to get around that.

 

Yup, that's the idea. Law is a lagging profession, so if the recovery starts this year, the disaster will continue at least until OCI 2011. Hopefully by OCI 2013 firms will start hiring again.

 

I'm still not 100% clear on how OCI works. But judging from what I've heard, I wouldn't count too much on OCI. If you can get a job through that, great. But last I checked, only about maybe 15% of students who found jobs at graduation got them via OCIs. It seems to me that other students find jobs either via connections formed over the years in the legal field, applying via e-mail to law firms in the neighborhood, or just literally walking into a no-name law firm job just because no one else knew about that job.

One example is a dude who goes to BU Law. During his 2L summer of 2009, he landed an $800/week job with some really tiny law firm. We all know how competitive the Boston legal market can be. But this law firm, located on the outskirts of Boston, was completely unknown. He was the only applicant for that position, so there was little room for the interviewer to low-ball during salary negotiation time.

Still, best of luck! We'll all be needing it!

 

thx! Hopefully I'll get into a top 14 law school where OCI is actually not useless

 

if it works sometimes but spits it out.. I think I'd try just cleaning the drive first... could just be dirt/grime/dust build up.

 

My earlier mbp had the same issue and i bought one of those Philips lens cleaner disc and it fixed it.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_tr...hilips+lens+cleaner&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

My son's early 2008 MBP DVD drive has had various problems. I think that it reads CDs but doesn't read/write DVDs. It had the problem of ejecting randomly too but I think that was fixed when they replaced the motherboard due to the nVidia graphics problem. It may be that the nVidia problem resulted in some damage to the Superdrive. Apple said that it would be $300 to replace the Superdrive. I got him an external DVD drive last year and he uses that but it's a pain. I offered him a new MBP but he declined. He has all of his university stuff on his current system and doesn't want to bother with setting everything up again, installing new windows, office, etc.

 

Ok now it never plays DVD's. .

Not sure if I need to clean the DVD drive or if it's a more serious problem (like needing to replace the DVD drive lol)