I bought 50 unbranded DVD-Rs last week, and found that not one of them would work in my PPC Mac Mini’s Superdrive. So I bought some branded Sonys, identical to discs I’d used before without a hitch. They didn’t work either. The Mac just spat them out after a whole lot of whirring, every time.

The drive can read and write CDs perfectly. I put a pre-recorded DVD in, and got the same issue – whirring, then auto-eject. I read some forums and saw a few people had suggested fixing similar issues by resetting the NVRAM (Cmd+Apple+P+R at reboot). I did this, and things have improved a bit.

Now I can burn a DVD, but I might need to insert and re-insert the blank up to ten times before the Mac will accept it.

I’m guessing the drive’s on the way out – anyone have any other ideas, and more to the point how simple is it to attempt replacing it myself? Do I need to buy the exact same drive? Help!