Have a week old iMac M3. Will not recognize any CD-ROM player. Seems that apple is abandoning the "old technology" of CD. Support confirms that. Has anyone found a workaround for this? PLEASE, no rehashing of what should be done in settings for prior iMac's. They are all set correctly, yet even support cannot help. This is going to leave tens of thousands of us with no access to our cd's. Not right Apple!!
iMac (M3, 2023)
Wrangler 41 wrote:
Have a week old iMac M3. Will not recognize any CD-ROM player. Seems that apple is abandoning the "old technology" of CD. Support confirms that. Has anyone found a workaround for this? PLEASE, no rehashing of what should be done in settings for prior iMac's. They are all set correctly, yet even support cannot help. This is going to leave tens of thousands of us with no access to our cd's. Not right Apple!!
The Apple USB SuperDrive is known to be finicky about power. If that's the drive you're using, you may have the greatest success in plugging it directly into your Mac, using a USB-A port (which your 24" M3 iMac doesn't have), or the Apple-brand USB-C to USB adapter.
If you have old data CD-Rs, made on a Mac, that use the HFS (no "+") filesystem, your Mac won't read those. The problem is that Apple dropped all support (even read-only support) for HFS as of Catalina. Reportedly, even if you created these CDs as hybrid Mac/PC CDs, modern versions of macOS won't read them. They could read the "PC" side (by itself), but upon seeing that HFS is present, they allegedly don't even try. If you have some of those CDs, your best hope of data retrieval may lie with a Windows PC or with an old Mac.
You shouldn't have a problem with audio CDs. I didn't have any problem playing one in an external OWC CD/DVD drive (with its own power supply) connected through a USB hub port on a monitor. If all support for optical discs had been removed, I wouldn't have expected that to work on my Mac (an Apple Silicon Mac running Ventura).
Wrangler 41 wrote:
Have a week old iMac M3. Will not recognize any CD-ROM player. Seems that apple is abandoning the "old technology" of CD. Support confirms that. Has anyone found a workaround for this? PLEASE, no rehashing of what should be done in settings for prior iMac's. They are all set correctly, yet even support cannot help. This is going to leave tens of thousands of us with no access to our cd's. Not right Apple!!
The Apple USB SuperDrive is known to be finicky about power. If that's the drive you're using, you may have the greatest success in plugging it directly into your Mac, using a USB-A port (which your 24" M3 iMac doesn't have), or the Apple-brand USB-C to USB adapter.
If you have old data CD-Rs, made on a Mac, that use the HFS (no "+") filesystem, your Mac won't read those. The problem is that Apple dropped all support (even read-only support) for HFS as of Catalina. Reportedly, even if you created these CDs as hybrid Mac/PC CDs, modern versions of macOS won't read them. They could read the "PC" side (by itself), but upon seeing that HFS is present, they allegedly don't even try. If you have some of those CDs, your best hope of data retrieval may lie with a Windows PC or with an old Mac.
You shouldn't have a problem with audio CDs. I didn't have any problem playing one in an external OWC CD/DVD drive (with its own power supply) connected through a USB hub port on a monitor. If all support for optical discs had been removed, I wouldn't have expected that to work on my Mac (an Apple Silicon Mac running Ventura).
I have the same problem on a 2024 M3 iMac trying to connect an Apple superdrive;
Also have six programs that will no longer run – including one updated from the AppStore!
It seems to be an M3 problem not Sonoma as my wife has a 2023 M1 iMac and that seems to run things that will not run on my M3; I had to download an update to Libre Office which then opened on my M3, but my wife is still happily running the older version transferred across from her previous 2017 iMac.
I have just tried connecting to the M1 machine which appears on the network but will no longer connect.
Seems strange that these are related to the update to the chip from M1 to M3 – though it did surprise me that the chip had gone through two iterations between October 2023 and January 2024.
You are not communicating with Apple on these forums, we are all end users just like you. Please be specific about the connections you are using, the version of Mac OS currently installed and what errors you are getting so we can help you out and of course the CD-ROM drives you are using.
My external DVD drive connects just fine using Sonoma so I suspect there is something you may (or may not) be doing correctly.
By the way, you may simply want to call AppleCare and ask for their help. AppleCare Contact Info
I have the following device and plug it directly into the back of my iMac. I try not to use a hub, however if you must then ensure you buy a powered hub. For peripherals I try to use macsales.com peripherals to connect as I know they specialize in Macs and they test every device.
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MR3UBDRW16/
I also recommend their hubs and docking stations such as a:
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-dock
Hello,
I also have a new M3 max Powerbook running on Sonoma Version 14.2.1 and have to use CDs for my radio show. I need to be able to read CDs and also burn CDs. I had 2 CD drives that worked great on my older Powerbook(they still do). I have been able to get both of them to work, but they are really flaky. I think the problem is poor software support from Apple. Sometimes when burning CDs it fails while showing an error in the Activity window while burning CDs in Music. The error message "Disc Burner or Software not found". I am seeing folks with Windows also getting the same message which makes me think it is the Music software that is the problem!
My work around is to
Make sure that System Settings/CDs & DVDs/ is set to open Music when you put in a blank CD.
Connect your CD Drive and wait about a minute
Put in a blank CD and wait another minute
Choose Burn Playlist to disc in Music
Then I open the Activity window and look to see if it is burning the songs to the disk
Sometimes I can get it to do another afterwards and other times I have to disconnect the CD Drive and start over at step 2.
If I choose to burn the CD then put the CD in the drive, sometimes I get a message asking which CD drive to use. It is asking about the company that manufactured the CD drive mechanism... not the company that made the case, but the mechanism is inside the case.
I have a Roofull model ECD829-Y, it has builtin USB-C/USB-A Y cable, with a case.
https://www.amazon.com/ROOFULL-External-Portable-Protective-Carrying/dp/B081H3F2J7?th=1
I also have another CD drive that looks like a generic Superdrive.
I did some searching trying to find a drive that works better and got a OWC Slim Optical Drive. It does not come with USB-C connections, but comes with a USB-A Y cable. I tried using two Apple USB-A to USB-C adapters but it would not work.
If anyone has a drive that works better on an M3 Max MacBook Pro I would like to know about it.
Sometimes the I hope this helps someone else.
Thanks
Guy
TerryGarland wrote:
Seems strange that these are related to the update to the chip from M1 to M3 – though it did surprise me that the chip had gone through two iterations between October 2023 and January 2024.
Apple never updated the iMac to use the M2. At the time they discontinued the M1 iMac, every other new Mac (save one) was already using M2-family chips, and had been, for a while. The M3 iMac is one of the first Macs with M3-series chips (the others being the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros).
If you're looking at the 'base'-version processors, Apple first came out with
So about one and a half years between generations.
Thank you rKaufmann87. This is a problem I might be facing in a week or 2. Two days ago I got new IMac w/ Sonoma. I guessed that I would need a hub to take various USB devices first. Please tell us if that is true. My machine has two C ports only. I am guessing that is where I will have to plug the hub. What kind of external CD drive do you use? kathleen
Apple's Superdrive is the last CD/DVD to think about using, other the original Macs it was built to run it on.
If you have USB3 A or C Mac I suggest this one...
That makes perfect sense. Thanks for the links.
Your welcome.
I know older iMacs will accept a cdrom. I used one on a 2019 Mac until the disk gave out. So bought the M3 2023. If you are not using the M3 then your answer is not relevant to the question.
Help! iMac M3 will not recognize CD-ROM drives
