Clamshell CD drive only reads commercial disks

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MaxTek's picture
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Clamshell CD drive only reads commercial disks

My cd drive in my blueberry iBook 300 has a ton of trouble reading burned (cd-r) disks. The same disks read perfectly in my Tibook.

If I put in a commercial disk (like my Jaguar CD's) they read perfectly and load fast.

Any ideas?

MaxTek

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clean the lens, OW replace the drive

Really your only choices. Those older CD-ROM readers aren't real tolerant of CD-R/W media, the drives having been released well before the R/W media became so widely used.

Sometimes a shot of compressed air can blow some laser-obstructing dust off the lens surface, worth a try before replacing the drive. I'd avoid trying to wipe the lens unless all else fails, the lens plastic scratches easily.

dan k

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Re: clean the lens, OW replace the drive

Really your only choices. Those older CD-ROM readers aren't real tolerant of CD-R/W media, the drives having been released well before the R/W media became so widely used.

Sometimes a shot of compressed air can blow some laser-obstructing dust off the lens surface, worth a try before replacing the drive. I'd avoid trying to wipe the lens unless all else fails, the lens plastic scratches easily.

dan k

Can it be upgraded/retrofitted/adapted with any drives from newer iBooks?

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sharpie-ed cd

I've been having the same problem myself! I've found that the reason it's not reading burnt CDs is that i've written on it with a sharpie! A burnt cd without writing usually works. See if that solves your problem.

Jon
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How are you holding, or what

How are you holding, or what surface do you put them on when you write on 'em? A felt tip of almost any kind should be fine on the label side of a CD.

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Re: How are you holding, or what

How are you holding, or what surface do you put them on when you write on 'em? A felt tip of almost any kind should be fine on the label side of a CD.

That is weird about the Sharpie pen stuff. I write it on the label side and hold them by the edges. I will try a burned cd with no writing...it can't hurt.

...so I guess there are no ways to upgrade the drive using a newer ibook?

MaxTek

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iBook uses standard slim optical drives

so you can use any standard slim optical drive from wherever you find it. Including from a later 'Book. The bezel won't match of course . . .

dan k

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crap - double post

OK then . . . I agree with the previous post, so there!

dan k

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