I have a MacBook Pro 15 Inch, 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and experienced the same problem with my Matshita DVD-R UJ-867 drive after downloading an Apple Security Update.

I tried everything from spraying air into the drive, a DVD Lense Cleaner Disc, Power resets and even banging the case. I’ve even flashed the DVD Drive but still couldn’t get the MacBook Pro to read either CD or DVD media blank or recorded or commecial discs.

Finally, before I jumped to buy a new drive I decided to buy a set of Torx screwdrivers containing a T-6 Torx driver so I could disassemble my MacBook Pro and remove the Matshita DVD-R UJ-867 drive.

I eventually removed the drive and removed the screws opening the actual drive to reveal the DVD-R drive contents inside. Onnce open I sprayed the optical lense with a can of compressed air and cleaned any dust on the lense and the rest of the inside of the drive. After that I replaced the DVD-R cover and replaced the screws. I then replaced the DVD-R drive back into the MacBook Pro and screwed it all back together.

Once I’d put it all back together I then powered the MacBook Pro up, booted the machine and inserted a music CD THE BEST OF BILL WITHERS and low and behold the CD disc mounted.

So stripping the DVD-R drive and spraying compressed air directly onto the optical lense removed the problem of not being able to load either CD or DVD discs. Now I can read any disc possible and the fix has returned the Matshita DVD-R UJ-867 drive so it now reads both CD and DVD discs as before.

The process is a fiddly but worth the effort. It is my guess that 99 per cent of Superdrive problems experienced by Apple MacBook Pro users using this hardware cleaning method will return their Superdrives to working state so they should be able to read and mount both CD and DVD media..

Job is a good one..

Regards

Kevan

P.S. post this on any and all MacBook Pro forums and blos as possible so other MacBook Pro owners can use the fix to repair their DVD-R Superdrive problem no being able to read and mount CD and DVD media.. Do what I did above and you’ll get your drive back without having to buy a new drive.. If your MacBook Pro is under warranty with Applecare then go to Apple. If the warranty has expired use my fix to repair your Superdrive..

Worth a shot if you’re out of warranty and need to fix that SuperDrive.

Richard:

I’m writing this to thank you for your help with my MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857D problem. I followed your advice and wrote to Steve Jobs at his Apple e-mails and I got an answer; they fixed my superdrive for free. They realized that it was a worldwide problem and fixed it, no questions asked.

So thank you for the advice.

It’s times like these that I’m glad I wrote up a detailed article on fixing these SuperDrives. The entire SuperDrive saga is in the Matshita SuperDrive category of the blog.

My complete personal saga with this issue lives in the Matshita SuperDrive category of this blog. I encourage you to read the buildup to my permanent solution. Through these personal experience and heartache, I have determined that the only solution for this problem is a SuperDrive replacement.

First, a recap of my experience. In August 2007, after applying to SuperDrive 2.1 update, I realized that my MacBook Pro wasn’t recognizing or burning certain types of media. I sent my MacBook Pro in for a drive replacement. Unfortunately, Apple’s technicians only reinstalled Tiger on my computer, which didn’t solve my issue. Although I was outraged, I decided to deal with the issue another time. In late December 2007, I came across a firmware patch for my drive and applied it. It was only a temporary fix, as many users have found out. Come late January 2008, I finally decided to try Apple Support again. After two phone calls, I arranged a drive replacement.

After twelve days, I had my computer back with a brand new HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA drive.

I believe that the only solution for this problem is to call Apple Support and demand a SuperDrive replacement. As far as I know, Apple have not officially recognized the SuperDrive problem. Here are my tips:

1. Take names of your support agents.
2. Stay consistent with your story.
3. Don’t admit any firmware hacks, period.
4. Don’t take “no” for an answer.
5. Call back if you don’t get what you want.
6. Mention all of the articles you’ve read online of people saying its a corrupted firmware caused by an Apple update.
7. If you’re told to reinstall your operating system, tell the support agent you’ll do so and call back in an hour.
8. Email all of Steve Jobs’ email addresses. I’m serious. (steve@mac.com, sjobs@apple.com, sjobs@mac.com). Tell your story and show your disappointment in the company. You’ll likely get contacted by Apple’s Executive Office.

Please leave any thoughts and experiences in the comments. I hope every last person affected by this issue gets his or her SuperDrive replaced.

I’m playing the waiting game in more than one way, though. It’s been a week since I’ve sent my beloved MacBook Pro to Apple for a SuperDrive replacement. The replacement SuperDrive has been on order for five days now, and I see no end to this torture in sight.

With those two factors combined, I have fewer things to write about than usual. I’ll see what I can do.

In the meantime, there are plenty of older posts to check out. I also invite you to watch my movies or add me on some social networks.

My answer is my G4 Cube. For the next week or so I’ll be living with a 450mhz, 640 megabyte (RAM) machine. This’ll be fun. I’ll be sure to give my thoughts on the experience.

A long time ago, I applied the SuperDrive 2.1 Update from Apple, as anyone who runs Apple’s Software Update utility should. Essentially, that update has been either bricking or severely limiting the function of drives everywhere. I sent the MacBook Pro to Apple, and rather than replacing the drive, they reformatted the drive and reinstalled Mac OS X Tiger. Eventually, some enterprising coders wrote a firmware patch utility, which actually solved my problems for a limited period. This last week, the problem reappeared, and I spent most of my day working to solve it. I twittered my experience with Apple Support:

• On with Apple Support to fix SuperDrive. 15 minutes waiting, starting now, for a rep.
• Hold music is awful. Surprise! But, I can forgive that. So far, no strikes against Apple.
• My problem? The infamous SuperDrive 2.1 Update hosed my drive. Apple refuses to acknowledge it online… let’s see if they do on the phone.
• I sent it in for a drive replacement in the past… instead, they reinstalled Tiger. I’m angry and finally have enough time to deal with it.
• Hold music stopped… I’m just sitting alone, cold, and scared.
• I feel like my call has been dropped into a bottomless pit. Calling again. >:/
• Extended wait time. “You may prefer to call back later.” – How about no.
• Current hold music: Coldplay – In My Place … I love that song! That almost makes up for my disconnection and extended waiting.
• Connected to an agent. Let’s see how it goes.
• “Let me see what I can do here.” I bet you that you can’t do anything. I’ve tried all the standard troubleshooting steps. The drive is bad!
• “Let’s see if I can cure this somehow.” I’d be overjoyed.
• “I think it’s a software issue.” It’s not!
• He wants me to reinstall Leopard! It’s. Not. Software.
• They refuse to acknowledge that the SuperDrive 2.1 Update firmware was corrupt. Off the phone. I was told to reinstall Leopard… AHHHHH!
• I’m going to have to reformat my system this evening. Of course, it won’t fix the problem. Then I’ll call back for more bogus advice.
• Guess what? A Leopard reinstall didn’t fix the corrupt firmware on my MacBook Pro’s SuperDrive. Calling Apple again.
• Estimated wait time, fifteen minutes. Here we go again, twitter friends. Let’s hope that I’ve now proven it’s not an OS issue.
• On the phone with a technician.
• 32 minutes on the phone, they’re sending me a box. Promised me they’re replacing the SuperDrive this time.

As you can tell, it took three phone calls and two support agents before I was given what I want: a box sent to my house to send the computer to Apple and the promise of a new SuperDrive.

I’ll keep everyone posted.

A more detailed post on this issue is coming soon.

A little backstory… Many months ago, Apple released a software update titled “SuperDrive Update 2.1″ for MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. Unfortunately, the update was flawed. It bricked many drives, and severely limited the function of others. Here’s a quick article on the matter:

Following close on the heels of our recent report that Apple’s SuperDrive Firmware Update 2.1 for MacBook and MacBook Pro is causing widespread failure of optical drives (as witness, for example, the plethora of reports on Apple’s own discussion boards), Apple has apparently pulled the update from circulation. The previous information URL … now leads nowhere. Neither does the download link.

My drive was damaged in that it no longer would recognize CD-R media (blank CDs). Back in July, I sent my MacBook Pro to Apple for a SuperDrive replacement, and they sent it back with a new installation of Tiger. Although I was outraged, that fixed my problem for a few months – until I installed Mac OS X Leopard. Again, my drive would not recognize cd-r media, and would report voltage errors in disk utility.

Again, Apple has shown us the company that they are. They refuse to officially acknowledge the issue to spite the outcry of thousands of users whose computers have been damaged.

Luckily, a very talented hacker (in a good sense) has released a tool to fix the problem. In this thread on Apple’s discussion boards, someone re-posted the fix. In hopes of spreading the remedy, I’m reposting it here.

“ben11″ wrote:

Hello,

After some private message exchanges it seems I was able to help some people in this situation (inclduing the original poster). I wrote a simple utility to perform a very basic flash to the drive – doing that may be able to recover the situation, but my flash utility performs almost no checks and is generally much more basic than the framework which, for example, the standard Apple Superdrive updaters have used.

So, if your drive is in a similar situation this may be able to help. But only try if you feel you’ve exhausted every other possibility, such as having the drive replaced. This flash process may not work for you, or in the worst case it could conceivably leave your drive is a worse state than before. It is of coursed not endorsed by anybody, in particular not Apple nor the drive manufacturer (or anybody at rpc1.org either).

As I wrote, compared to the standard updaters this utility makes few checks on the drive status – so unless your drive has really lost its standard operating firmware, often because of an interrupted flash, don’t use this rather than a more featured updater.

Simple flash utility archive:

http://rapidshare.com/files/57312123/SimpleFlash.zip.html

There is the terminal based utility (and source code) – along with copies of the HAEA, HBEA, KBVB, KCVB (RPC1 patched) firmwares for the UJ-857 and UJ-857D.

Basic Instructions
You need to download the “SimpleFlash.zip” file, unpack it and then run it using the terminal. e.g. assuming you have downloaded the archive file to your desktop you can unpack like this:

ben11s-computer:~ ben11$ cd Desktop
ben11s-computer:~/Desktop ben11$ unzip SimpleFlash.zip
ben11s-computer:~/Desktop ben11$ cd SimpleFlash

to use the utility you start it using ONE of the following commands:

./simple_flash 0 UJ857-HAEA-MBP-rpc1.dat

or

./simple_flash 0 UJ857-HBEA-MB-rpc1.dat

or

./simple_flash 0 UJ857D-KBVB-MB-rpc1.dat

or

./simple_flash 0 UJ857D-KCVB-MBP-rpc1.dat

(choose according to the firmware you need, see below)

It will prompt you to answer if you want to continue – to which you can type ‘yes’ or ‘y’, if you want to go on. The flash should start and will take about 30 seconds after which the utility should say “Finished”. At this point I recommended you restart your Mac. If all has gone well your drive should be responding again.

Choosing the Firmware
The firmware included are the ones that the “Apple Superdrive 2.1″ update offered for Matshita drives – except the ones in this archive have RPC1 patches. If you don’t want RPC1 you could go back to standard firmware using the updaters posted in other threads on this forum after your drive is responding again.

In principal the utility would also flash other matshita UJ-8xx drives, but suitable firmware data files are not included for them.

HAEA, HBEA are for UJ-857
KBVB, KCVB are for UJ-857D

If your drive previously had:

HAC1 or HAE4 use HAEA
HBE4 use HBEA
KBV9 use KBVB
KCV9 use KCVB

If you don’t know the previous firmware revision you had then: As far as I know firmware revisions HAEA & KCVB are used in the Macbook Pro, HBEA & KBVB are used in the Macbook. Choose according to which model of mac and which model of drive you have.

The optical drive should not accept a firmware corresponding the wrong drive model, but for a given model the various revisions may have slight differences, perhaps because of different physical constraints on the hardware – so try to pick the appropriate revision.

Good luck.

Ben’s fix worked on my SuperDrive just fine. I can now see and burn all the types of media that I’m suppose to be able to.

If you’re someone who came across this post looking for a solution, I wish you luck. However, I make no guarantees that this remedy will work and am not responsible for any damage done to your drive.

Addressed is the only word I can come up with. Right now, I’m very angry with Apple, Inc. My complaint, under warranty, was that my system was unable to handle blank CDs, and would simply eject them. I assumed, after troubleshooting in Mac OS X’s safe mode with and without a technician, that there was something wrong with the SuperDrive (disc drive). I was told the drive was getting replaced at the factory, and sent it away. Today, I was given a computer that seemed foreign to my own; it’s the same exact machine, with all of the same exact hardware, but with a reinstalled Mac OS X. My hard drive was wiped, reformatted, planted with an OS, and sent home.

If I didn’t keep a backup of all of my data, I would be in a world of hurt right now. So, why am I angry, you ask? I am competent enough to reinstall OS X myself. Simply give me that solution. I shouldn’t be told it’s a hardware issue and have to lose my computer for several days because Apple wants to reinstall my Operating System. That’s simply ridiculous.

It’s understandable to reinstall the OS on a system that’s sent in. However, I could have simply done that myself had I been told to; I would have been glad to. Furthermore, there’s a huge opportunity cost here. I lost days of productivity by not having my machine, and had to use a PC to take care of routine tasks. Obviously, that was a painful process. It’s frustrating when your favorite company screws you over.

On top of that, albeit on a lesser note, I take issue with DHL. My estimated return delivery date was last Friday, July 27. However, the package was held up in Danbury until today; what’s the deal? I don’t understand how a shipping company can be profitable by not shipping on weekends.

As I write this post, I’m taking a few hours to restore my previous software and settings to my MacBook Pro.

I thought about commandeering my spare computer, a PowerMac G4 Cube that I bought for $250 about a month ago as a gift for my Mom, but decided against it. Although I’m miffed, this might just be a blessing in disguise. I need some time away from computers, right? Actually, during this time, I’m going to buckle down on some college research and start doing some admissions posting very soon.