Mac Won't Recognize Audio CDs

candylandriots

unkempt
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Mar 30, 2004
12,327
Berlin
I bought a couple of CDs recently. I tried to rip them with my old iMac (circa 2010). I'm running Sierra version 10.12.6. The computer would not recognize either one, and thought they were blank discs. In finder, they show as Untitled, with the black and yellow circle. They are commercial releases, so this isn't a CD+R. They both play fine in another device. The drive evidently still works, because I put a DVD in and it was fine.

Apple's support forums are all down for maintenance now for some reason. Any ideas? All I want to do is rip these CDs into iTunes.
 

dbn

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 10, 2007
7,785
La Mancha.
My optical drive hadn't worked for years. Just recently I half-shoved a tissue into it with a plastic (e.g., insurance) card to wipe it out, and boom, it works again.

edit: naturally, if you try this, be careful as you probably don't want to get stuff stuck in the drive.
 

The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2006
7,876
SS Botany Bay
Some audio cds have a copy protection "root kit" secretly installed on them to make it harder for people to rip them for sharing, and this could prevent it from being read by some computer devices.
 

uncannymanny

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 12, 2007
9,081
That all means nothing to me. Could you please translate to stupidish?
See the previous post for resetting PRAM, etc. Disk Utility is an application installed with the OS. Insert the disk and see if it shows up.