iBook 500 Combo drive problem?

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Kwan Yeoh - 02 Dec 2003 11:44 GMT

Hi, Back in August 2001, my father & I both bought iBook 500 Dual USB
machines with combo drives. Both these machines have now had their combo
drives fail & I'm wondering if this was a problem with these particular
machines. Has anyone else had these problems?

They would intermittently be unable to read inserted CD's, offering to
format them (whether a writable CD was inserted or not). This was
sometimes helped with closing the drive & then trying again, or perhaps
with a bruch of the drive lens, or perhaps not fixable at all.

Mine failed in November 2002 & was replaced under warranty (the 3-year
warranty). Dad's has failed just in the last month & will need to be
replaced out-of-warranty.

Is this a common problem? If it's widespread enough, I'm wondering if
perhaps we can ask for this to be replaced under warranty as a known
manufacturing fault.

Thanks.

Kwan.

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Whytoi - 02 Dec 2003 12:41 GMT

> Hi, Back in August 2001, my father & I both bought iBook 500 Dual USB
> machines with combo drives. Both these machines have now had their combo
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> perhaps we can ask for this to be replaced under warranty as a known
> manufacturing fault.

I have heard of stories and experienced one CD drive going out of
alignment. The fix is by unit replacement. But I doubt that's a
generalized problem. But maybe it's a poor batch...

Makes me wonder if I should buy Extended AppleCare for my current PB.

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Steve Jay - 02 Dec 2003 22:03 GMT

You don't need it to be a "known manufacturing fault" to get warranty
repair, Australian (ie all states) consumer law requires Apple to
repair it provided the product is still covered under the warranty and
that there's no evidence of abusive use.

> Hi, Back in August 2001, my father & I both bought iBook 500 Dual USB
> machines with combo drives. Both these machines have now had their combo
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> Kwan.

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Kwan Yeoh - 04 Dec 2003 11:43 GMT

> You don't need it to be a "known manufacturing fault" to get warranty
> repair, Australian (ie all states) consumer law requires Apple to
> repair it provided the product is still covered under the warranty and
> that there's no evidence of abusive use.

No, the computer is no longer covered by warranty, but if it was a
"known problem", then I was hoping Apple might repair it as if it was
under warranty (similar to the recent PowerBook power adaptor
replacement scheme) as a goodwill thing. Having said that, Apple's been
rather poor on the goodwill side of things recently.

Kwan.

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Amos Barnett - 07 Dec 2003 07:39 GMT

>>You don't need it to be a "known manufacturing fault" to get warranty
>>repair, Australian (ie all states) consumer law requires Apple to
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> Kwan.

Apple regularly gets people trying to scam things for free out of them,
so they are, consequently, rather strict about what they will or will
not do.

As far as I know, the drives in iBooks are fairly standard PC ones, and
various places in the USA offer replacements, mainly for people who want
to upgrade, but have no path to do so via Apple.

Amos

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Robert Duong - 23 Dec 2003 21:53 GMT

> As far as I know, the drives in iBooks are fairly standard PC ones, and
> various places in the USA offer replacements, mainly for people who want
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Amos

You've got to be careful with which drive and what firmware it has. I
tried to install a Toshiba combo drive into my iBook 500. It wouldn't
work and I found it it was the firmware. Still haven't been able to
change the firmware. Oh, and opening the machine was a real bastard. :-P

Rob

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Michael F. - 29 Dec 2003 22:56 GMT

>You've got to be careful with which drive and what firmware it has. I
>tried to install a Toshiba combo drive into my iBook 500. It wouldn't
>work and I found it it was the firmware. Still haven't been able to
>change the firmware. Oh, and opening the machine was a real bastard. :-P

hehe.. yes they can be a pain to open. I know how you feel when you
say that. Opening some of these new powerbooks are troublesome. Talk
about all the screws and various sizes. doh.

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Steve Bell - 30 Dec 2003 12:15 GMT

On 23/12/03 9:53 pm, in article
nomorespam_radiodog-071053.08531024122003@lust.ihug.co.nz, "Robert Duong"
<nomorespam_radiodog@ihug.com.au> wrote:

>> As far as I know, the drives in iBooks are fairly standard PC ones, and
>> various places in the USA offer replacements, mainly for people who want
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Rob

And another problem is Apple have used a few different makes/models of CD
drives in the iBooks, the bezel from one make doesn't always fit another.

Steve Bell

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Rob Duong - 31 Dec 2003 00:53 GMT

> And another problem is Apple have used a few different makes/models of CD
> drives in the iBooks, the bezel from one make doesn't always fit another.
>
> Steve Bell

Which reminds me... anyone want an unused combo drive bezel for a white iBook ;-)

Rob

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Mac Forum / Country Specific / Australian Mac Group / December 2003

iBook 500 Combo drive problem?