I have some backups which I burned to CD in 2009. This was on whatever was the current OS/iMac combo back then.
I wanted to check on some data on some files, and plugged the Apple A1379 into my 2023 M2. The CD is loaded but quickly ejected. Plugging it into an external Orico USB 3.2 hub does not even load the CD! This hub was plugged into one of the USB-C/ TB ports.
Checking the System Report with the drive plugged into the M2 shows the CD drive, and shows 500mA available from that port!! The A1379 needs 1.6 amps so this is likely the cause of the trouble. Is this the new standard on new Macs? I guess I could pull the old machine out of the cupboard and set up file sharing to access my data, or is there another fix?
The Apple SuperDrive has always been weird. It requires a proprietary extension to the USB spec, which no non-Apple products have ever supported.
If you can plug it directly into your M2 Mac (using a C-to-A adapter), it should work, but if you use any kind of hub or docking station, it won’t. This has been the case since that drive was first released, except back then all Macs had type-A USB ports, so you could directly plug it in without an adapter.
Your alternative is to get a third-party optical drive that can either be powered directly by your hub/dock, or one that uses an external power brick and therefore won’t care about the power available via USB.
macOS should work with any USB optical drive, whether or not it was designed for Macs. CD-ROM/R/RW, DVD-ROM/RAM/+R/-R/+RW/-RW and BD-ROM/R/RE should all “just work” for data discs. And all should be able to play commercial CD/DVD media. But you’ll need third-party software to play Blu-Ray movies - Apple has never bundled BD video playback software.
Is it possible those discs are in HFS format, which modern macOS no longer supports? I’ve run into that with old backup discs. They might be being ejected because they can’t be read.
Tested that by inserting a regular audio CD, which is how iTunes ripped my music to the library. Same result:- the CD is accepted but quickly ejected. This contrasts with the behavior when inserted into a hub:- CD is not accepted at all.
To test my theory about insufficient juice from the USB A port I tried an adapter (USB C male to USB A female) in a TB/USB C port, and again the CD is accepted but fails to load. On checking System Report it seems the TB/USB C ports are providing less than the required 1.6 amps
So I tried my wife’s 2017 iMac to no avail. CD accepted but will not load, System Report is the same.
It seems it is not only the media you choose for your backups to be future proof, but also the commitment of the brand you choose to support those media. It looks I shall be getting a cheap CD drive to see if the discs themselves have survived the last 15yrs, and if so, rescue the data to some modern medium.
What you see for the Apple USB SuperDrive is exactly how it is supposed to look.
You’re saying that a commercial audio CD doesn’t load when the SuperDrive is plugged directly into your wife’s 2017 iMac? To me that eliminates…
- Bad media
- Unsupported file system
- Unsupported port
leaving only one possibility…
- SuperDrive malfunction
Optical drives fail mechanically for three reasons:
- Lens is dirty
- Laser worn out
- Circuitry failure, e.g. aged capacitors
For a dirty lens, you can try a lens cleaning disc. It has little fibers that brush the lens. It could help.
The semiconductor lasers in optical drives don’t last forever. I had a DVD player that started having trouble reading discs and eventually stopped working.
I have a SuperDrive, but I was getting errors when I ripped some CDs. I got a new external optical drive, and it rips the same CDs with no errors. So, it could be that you just need a new drive.
I have a SuperDrive that is a good 10 years old. It is plugged into a CalDigit TS3 hub, then to an M1 MBP. Works just fine. I have a vague memory of having to install a driver to supply high power.
If your hub doesn’t have the hardware and firmware to deliver the higher power, then it won’t be able to do so.
But I have seen device driver hacks (especially for Linux) that will allow the operating system to ignore the device’s requirements (basically lie to the device), so it will work on a normal USB port.
This will work most of the time because normal disc-read operations can be done with less than the 500 mA a normal USB 2.0 port provides. But certain operations (especially disc burning) may require more power, which may or may not result in failures, depending on whether the port imposes current limits (as it should) or not.
But if you’re just reading discs, those hacks may work just fine.