h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After uploading an entire CD collection to iTunes on my iBook, I am left with two willfully stubborn commercially produced CDs who refuse to be "hoed out", as they put it. Instead of cooperating properly, they both wallowed around aimlessly in the CD drive, smoked some pot, then staged a hippie peace march before they were forcibly ejected by the iBook police. Both CDs have a heavy coating of screenprinted ink on their faces. This is because they were too cheap to get a decent tattoo.

I noticed that several other CDs with thick ink coatings exhibited the same listless reluctance before finally submitting.

Has anyone else had this problem or do I have an overly sensitive reader/player in my laptop? Is there a workaround?

Google for the name of the CD and the phrase "DRM", AW.

There are a few record companies who have deliberately jiggered their CDs to stop them playing (or indeed being read) on a computer. Sometimes the same album exists in two different releases, and if you return a DRM'd one to the company in complaint (tell them it won't play) they'll send you a non-DRM'd one as a replacement.

Thanks Pete! Good to see you!

I was wondering if the this might be caused by an odd format issue like that. The problem is that both CDs were purchased maybe five to seven years ago... don't know if I can still return them. Drat Rhino and VH1!

*s off to check out DRM matters*

It's most likely not because of DRM though. I've had problems like this on my iMac (sometimes with cd's which are definitely without DRM but with heavy coating (or stickers! )
I *do* have a workaround that works most times,but it might not be exactly what you're looking for: The drive in the PowerBook isn't quite as sensible.

I found that after 4 years of sucking dust into its bottom, my iMac CD drive acted very strangely with some discs. And burning discs was even odder, they would play fine in some players but spin endlessly while emitting clicks in my car.

What solved it was a $10 cleaning disk. It's a CD with soft bristles on the bottom. Pop it into the CD drive, listen to the muzak for 30 seconds or so, and the drive works like a champ again. Or did - the disc I burnt yesterday is exhibiting the same problem, so I need to find that cleaning disc again.

It might be worth it to try on your iBook.

aha!! so they make cleaning discs now for cd drives that are only accessible thru a little slot on the side of the laptop?
yay!!

Ooooh, maybe not. My iMac is the tray loading "Luxo Jr" model. I hadn't thought of compatibility with slot-loading drives.

oh

you know, when i bought my macbook i asked them in the store about that but they just kinda looked noncommital and said something like 'you dont have to worry about that'... i was so euphoric about getting my first mac i wasn't thinking straight and let it go.... i think the implication was periodical tuneups at the store would clear any dust out?

am i in trouble?!

"I found that after 4 years of sucking dust into its bottom..."

Good trick if you can do it!

A quick Mac story, just because it seems appropriate here...

Back in the dim and distant days of the 68K Mac, Apple released an external SCSI CD-RW drive. I can't remember the model number, and Google is about as much use as a chocolate teapot on the subject, so lets call it the "XXX".

This drive had an incredibly high mid-life failure rate; it would work for a few months and then stop. Most engineers found that just blowing the dust off the optics with a can of compressed air fixed it.

Apple released a "free upgrade pack" to all certified Apple engineers. It contained: A tiny wire cutters, a bag of cable ties and a pack of front panel stickers labelled "XXX-e".

It turned out that a bad design decision had led to the installation of a cooling fan blowing out the back that sucked dust in through the front and piled it all on the optics. The instructions with the kit were to cut the wires to the fan, cable-tie them where they could do no harm and change the front sticker so you could identify drives that had already been "modified".

>>
i asked them in the store about that but they just kinda looked noncommital and said something like 'you dont have to worry about that'
<<

That would have to be one of the most accurate descriptions of Mac resellers I've ever seen


I get the spinnie disc thing alot with all sorts of discs, but then I have a crappy matshita superdrive.

I also find that older CD players won't play burnt discs especially those with MP3 on them instead of WAV.