Agree with Bob

by Jimmy Greystone - 8/26/11 6:25 AM

In Reply to: Same issue by S_Brumlik

I agree with Bob. Any time I get something like this coming across my workbench, I just replace the drive. Not sure why it seems to be such a mystery to people that optical drives fail, and fail often, when they do fail so often. You'd think more people would have experienced it by now.

Of course the MacBook uses a slot loading slimline drive, and while it's not overly difficult to change out, there are some tools required the average person wouldn't likely have. There's also a small trick to removing the airport card mount without breaking the little grounding tab that connects to the optical drive. There's a different trick for the older non-unibody MacBooks, though replacing those drives is considerably more work.

So if you can actually source a replacement MacBook optical drive, just take your time taking the old one out and putting the new one in.