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.