I have a revision B iMac. Major problem: it
suddenly cannot read any CDs (audio or
otherwise) that I put into its internal tray.
No usual whirring sound. No icon
appears on desktop. After a few clicking
sounds, a message comes up saying
"the disc is unreadable by this computer.
Do you want to initialize the disc?" with a
window saying it's a DOS format (tho it's
not). It will not initialize, so I have to eject.

I can use my external CD-RW to read
discs at the moment, but I would like to fix
the problem, if possible. Any suggestions
please?

Have you tried one of those laser head cleaning discs? Might just be a dirty lens, so it's worth a try, but I suspect you might have a dead drive on your hands.

p

Thanks, I'll try that, although I fear you may
be right about a damaged drive. Know
how to remove and check/clean it? Or
know if I could connect a cheap external
CD player to my iMac? ( I don't want to go
to the expense of buying another
CD-RW).

Lew

Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any USB-based external CD-ROM drives. They're all CD-R or CD-RW.

Getting the internal drive out is a real PITA, but the service manual to do so is available here:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/manual.man/

p

Thanks Pickle. I tried using a lens
cleaning disk, but it still didn't work, so the
drive must be damaged.

Thanks for your advice anyway.

Lew

Sounds as though you may have lost your
CD driver. I did this once on a zip drive. I
fixed it with Norton Disk Doctor. You might
try that....or try reinstalling your system
software.
J

No, the driver is still there in the
extentions. I've run Norton. No difference.
The laser itself must be stuck or
damaged I think.

The CD-R drive in my kid's iMac just croaked exactly as you described. I think that the drive mechanism must be pretty flimsy. Before it died, it would occasionally become very loud while the disc was spinning. I thought the disc was warped (they are kiddie game discs after all), but they worked fine in my other computers.

I just saw a replacement drive that fits into the same slot as the original drive. It's made by MCE. It's actually better than the old drive since it's a 16x10x24 CD-RW drive. The catalog number is 974280 at ClubMac.com. It goes for about $200, but I haven't been able to find other alternatives. I haven't bought it yet since I want to see if I can find a cheaper CD-R drive out there since I don't need the RW capabilities on this computer. I had a couple of SCSI external CD drives that I attached using a SCSI to USB converter my sister dug up. It worked, except it was WAY too slow to be of any use. The newer faster USB 2.0 capabilities can't be used on OS9.

So I guess it's either pony up $200 or put that toward a new computer. I bought one of the Quicksilver G4 units with the combo CD-RW/DVD-RW drive and a flat panel display. It's pretty awesome. Since Apple is really pushing toward OSX, your iMac may be relegated to your kids, like mine, since it's not really easy to convert one of the old iMacs to use the new OS.