Mac OS X 10.3.7: CDs/DVDs not recognized or not mounting; Fixes

Some users are unable to mount CDs and DVDs after applying the Mac OS X 10.3.7 update. Two typical reports of the problem:

• "After installing the upgrade to 10.3.7, suddenly my internal Pioneer DVD/CD player stopped working. It won't even recognize any CD or DVD that is put into the drive. I still haven't found a solution but thought I would warn others about this occurrence."
• "I just installed OS X 10.3.7 update and now neither my DVD nor CD player will recognize anything that is put into the drive."

If you are having problems removing media from your Mac after the update, you may want to try some of the suggestions contained in our mini-tutorial "Ejecting media in Mac OS X: Removing 'stuck' CDs/DVDs." These include holding down the mouse/trackpad button at startup, and a couple of Terminal commands.

If you are having problems mounting media, you may want to try repeatedly ejecting and re-inserting the disc until it mounts. Readers also report that having the Finder as the foremost application during media insertion more often results in a successful mount. Finally, logging out of the current user account, then logging back in has been reported to temporarily resolve the issue in some instances.

If you are only having problems with DVDs not automatically playing in DVD Player, you might want to try using the "Open VIDEO_TS folder" option located under the "File" menu in DVD Player. If DVD Player crashes repeatedly after the Mac OS X 10.3.7 (as reported by a handful of readers), you may want to try an alternative player like VLC media player.

Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader "WBF" notes that deleting kernel extension caches worked for him:

"Go to /System/Library/ and delete Extensions.kextcache and Extensions.mkext" [You'll need to then restart; OS X will recreate these files at startup. -Ed]

And Paul Keller found that a setting in the CDs & DVDs pane of System Preferences fixed the problem for him:

"I checked the CDs & DVDs preference pane. The standard behaviour for blank CDs was set to ignore. I changed it to 'Ask what to do' and tried mounting the CD again which worked just fine."

For some users, it appears that the option to show removable devices in the Finder sidebar or on the desktop has been inexplicably turned off during the update to Mac OS X 10.3.7. This is an issue that has occurred with previous incremental Mac OS X updates. MacFixIt reader Philippe Simon writes:

"Recently (certainly since update 10.3.7, but i did not check immediately), an external firewire hard drive is not recognized on my PowerBook. I tried different solutions and noticed in general preferences of the finder 'show these options on the desktop' that the option 'CD, DVD and iPod' was unselected. I am sure that i did not unselect it myself and that the modification was introduced by the update; this could eventually explain why certain users don't see their CD and DVD on the desktop."

In order to turn check whether or not this option is turned off, open the Finder's preferences (located under its Application menu) and click "General." Look to see if the options under "Show these Items on the Desktop" are active. Then click "Sidebar," and make sure the items you'd like to appear on the desktop are selected.

Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader Steve was able to get proper operation with an alternative drive:

"Since the upgrade I get constant 'hangs' when using Dvd player and or Itunes. I am unable to eject the disc and the beachball of death becomes a regular feature, the only solution has been to shut down using the power button as normal shut down stopped working. I am using a 1.6 G5 with an internal LaCie dvd burner(Itunes supported) that worked great until this upgrade.

"I have solved the problem to a point by removing the LaCie and putting in a Sony 710A dvd drive which is not supported by iTunes but seems fine with everything else including ejecting and shut down, plus no beach-balls. This may be because there is no software on the system relating to this particular drive that can be stuffed by the new upgrade. I can now only burn using a third party program i.e. Roxio Toast but can't burn my iTunes purchased music for playing in standard CD players (car)."

We've also received some more reports of CD recording problems -- particularly with sessions burned under Mac OS X 10.3.7 not being recognized:

"After updating to 10.3.7 my G5's internal DVR-106D won't mount CD-Rs burned on it, although they open fine on my external CD drives. Sessions burned prior to the update open while sessions on the same disk burned after the date will not. Vexing indeed."

Resources

"Ejecting media in Mac OS X: Removing 'stuck' CDs/DVDs."

VLC media player

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