My other 1/2 has a 2 year old macbook. Recently she has had problems getting it to recognise discs she has burnt herself. A macstore suggested getting a cleaning disc & blew some air in – this helped for a few minutes…………then back to square one. We have 2 newfoundlands, so there is a fair bit of dust & fur about, but she is obsessive about keeping it clean & it’s stored in a zip-up bag. It is occsaionally used in bed – the duvet means the back gets pretty hot, but it’s never malfunctioned at the time.
The next course of action suggested at the macstore was a new disc drive at around £250!!!!!! or an external one (much cheaper I think, but less portable). Does the STW massive have any other ideas? Is this a common problem as I am thinking of getting an Imac for home?

If I do decide to get an Imac I seem to recall that apple have a wednesday sale of opened box goods. I can’t find it, if anyone can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

Nick

Posted 12 years ago

1. Can she not switch to using external hdd or usb pens rather than optical disks?
2. An external optical drive can be had for around £25
3. I use a macbook and an iMac, both 1 year old and never had a problem, but I don’t use optical media very often.

Have you tried the refurb part of the apple store: linky

Posted 12 years ago

You could probably do it yourself for a lot less than £250.

Lots of instructions around on the net:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/apple-notebooks/96790-all-done-dvd-drive-has-been-swapped-out-pics.html

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac (lots of useful how-tos).

Posted 12 years ago

A new Superdrive will set you back $150 + shipping from ifixit. Opening the case isn’t too taxing if you take your time and make sure you separate out the different sized screws as you remove them.

Or if you don’t need to use the drive when mobile, just pick up a cheap external one.

Posted 12 years ago

On this side of the pond The Bookyard do spares for Mac laptops.

Posted 12 years ago

Not sure about the optical drive, but to help answer your second question, I’d say Macs are very reliable.

I’ve bought (counts) … 7 since 1995, and I’ve only ever had a problem with one of them. (The infamous MacBook random shutdown, now fixed at Apple and sorted for me with a no-quibble replacement.)

So don’t let it put you off an iMac. Although, Apple are supposed to be bringing out new iMacs soon, so it might be worth waiting a bit if you wanted the latest and greatest.

Posted 12 years ago

I’ve managed an office full of Macs for 10 years with no real problems.

The drive in my old G4 Powerbook died last year, but I’ve used the machine everyday for 6 or 7 years and it’s been dropped a fair few times, so that probably explains it.

If you’re thinking of getting an IMac then it will most likely come with 10.5. Simply upgrade the Macbook to 10.5 and use the CD/DVD sharing facility to burn / read CD’s and DVD’s on the IMac. It’s meant to be easy although I’ve not tried it.

Posted 12 years ago

Oh, should mention that you need loads of RAM for 10.5. It will work with less than 1Gb, but it runs very very sloooooooow.

Posted 12 years ago

I thought the Messiah Jobs said that Macs don’t need much RAM? Horrible Windows thing etc.

[Disclaimer: I have a MacBook so can make sarky comments]

Posted 12 years ago

Recently she has had problems getting it to recognise discs she has burnt herself.

What about other discs? If the problem is only with discs she has burnt herself then it doesn’t seem likely that the problem would be with the drive. Might be with the type of disc?

Posted 12 years ago