strange mac pro problem

johnb1 · Jun 1st, 2012, 06:02 PM

Quad Core Mac pro 3,1 OS 10.6.8, 8 gig ram, Xeon I think
Just a few days ago, my 2nd dvd drive, which was working fine until then, started ejecting and keeps trying to eject. the tray goes out and comes in, then out and in again. I ran disk utility on it and it hasn't fixed anything. Maybe the drive is toast?

any help appreciated
this one's got me stumped

John B

pm-r · Jun 2nd, 2012, 12:02 AM

Is there any CD or DVD sitting in the tray??

johnb1 · Jun 2nd, 2012, 08:54 AM

no, but thanks for asking. The drive is behaving itself better than last night, but now it seems to have lost the ability to burn dvd's, and is listed under "about this Mac" as a bunch of gibberish, rather than LiteOn.

screature · Jun 2nd, 2012, 09:26 AM

So it is not a DVD drive then and only CD? The reason I ask is because it says "Reads DVD: No"

pm-r · Jun 2nd, 2012, 01:07 PM

What does the System Profiler (more info button from about this mac) list for the other CD/DVD drive??

johnb1 · Jun 2nd, 2012, 01:17 PM

Profiler says the other drive(the stock one) is Optiarc and it reads dvds, burns cd's and dvd, reads dvd's too. Hmm...oh and If I click on the hard drive icon, under "places" I can see "untitled cd" but I can't remove it, and there's a burn icon beside it. I think that drive has forgotten to forget that there's no disc in the drive... I guess I"m gonna have to yank the lower one today....

John B

screature · Jun 2nd, 2012, 01:48 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by johnb1
	Profiler says the other drive(the stock one) is Optiarc and it reads dvds, burns cd's and dvd, reads dvd's too. Hmm...oh and If I click on the hard drive icon, under "places" I can see "untitled cd" but I can't remove it, and there's a burn icon beside it. I think that drive has forgotten to forget that there's no disc in the drive... I guess I"m gonna have to yank the lower one today.... John B

Yeah DVD drives are pretty cheap these days... it could be toast.

BTW do you ever actually ever find yourself needing 2 optical drives these days?... I have two and never use more than one at a time. Just curious...

pm-r · Jun 2nd, 2012, 02:08 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by johnb1
	Profiler says the other drive(the stock one) is Optiarc and it reads dvds, burns cd's and dvd, reads dvd's too. Hmm...oh and If I click on the hard drive icon, under "places" I can see "untitled cd" but I can't remove it, and there's a burn icon beside it. I think that drive has forgotten to forget that there's no disc in the drive... I guess I"m gonna have to yank the lower one today.... John B

You should be able to control-click or right-click on the "untitled cd" and select 'remove from sidebar' ... no??

i-rui · Jun 2nd, 2012, 03:48 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by screature
	BTW do you ever actually ever find yourself needing 2 optical drives these days?... I have two and never use more than one at a time. Just curious...

i use to have a 2nd optical drive in my mac pro, i ended up removing it and putting in 2 hdds in the slot (a 2.5" sdd, and a 3.5" hdd).

much better use of the space IMO.

Dr_AL · Jun 2nd, 2012, 04:14 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by i-rui
	i use to have a 2nd optical drive in my mac pro, i ended up removing it and putting in 2 hdds in the slot (a 2.5" sdd, and a 3.5" hdd). much better use of the space IMO.

I've done the exact same thing. I actually put two 2.5" SSD's there for boot drives using the two extra SATA connections. Just ran two wires up there.

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