The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media

[macfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by jockabroad I know a lot of first posters have com ein here to say the process worked but it did not work for me. Last night i was burning a DVD and my son bumped my MacBook Pro the burn failed saying ....the device failed to calibrate.... etc. When i tried to burn again, i got the same message. I had DVD problems in the past with cheap media, so made sure i had a decent brand, so i knew that was not my problem. I tried to burn a disc from work to make sure... but i got the same error. then i saw this thread with the language process. I follwed it twice, but i got the same error. I eventually tracked down a lens cleaner, ran it through 2 or 3 times and i can now burn again.

What one was it ? You have given me re-newed hope !

[macfan]

Just to see yes I can confirm all you need is a CD cleaner, woohoo

[jockabroad]

OK... after my last post i was able to burn ok. but the next day i got the same message, so i ran the cleaner dvd through and all was fine, but this seems to be a daily thing for me now. I can;t see that i have that much crap in there that i need to clean it out every day.

At this point i have run the cleaner through 3 or 4 time today and i keep getting the "failed to calibrate' message.

... i was about to give up... but the drive has just started a burn.
Hmmm this won't get better all by itself.

I had this problem on my 24" iMac and after talking with apple support we were able to solve with the following:

1. shut down computer completely.
2. unplug everything.
3. wait a minute (60 seconds, not 5).
4. plug everything back in but DO NOT TURN COMPUTER ON.
5. immediately after you turn your computer on, hold down the following 4 keys simultaneously <COMMAND> <OPTION> P R. my screen turned white, then black and rebooted again. after the second reboot, release the keys.
6. try burning again.

--adam

Hmmm... I have four or five macs, and one hasn't been letting me burn for a while. Needless to say, today I was stuck with the one that was not burning (no other computers) and I REALLY needed to burn two CD's for work. I tried various tricks (including the language thing) but nothing was working. I didn't have a disc cleaner on hand, but I did have some electronic 'air duster' cleaner (canned air spray stuff). A few squirts into the disc drive and voila!

This is an older macbook pro so I wasn't too worried about damaging anything with the spray. If it was a brand new laptop I might have had reservations.

I hope my solution helps someone.

For the record, this drive hasn't been burning properly for over a year now!

Cheers,

Marlow

After more than 9 months of not burning DVD's, thinking my burner is just dead and out of warranty, I read this post and tried the language trick. Honest to GOD, it worked. I did not reboot I just logged out and back on after going thru the steps in an earlier post. English was already at the top of the list but I moved it out and back as suggested. Word break was set to standard and I changed that to "English (United States)". Began burning like a new one. The burner does make a buzzing noise when burning and playing, but it always has.
I am curious to know if this is a glitch that Apple is willing to fix for free??? My 27" Imac is now 2 years old and would like to get it fixed but don't have the extra money if this is something I have to pay for, and I did not break!!!

Thanks

Dont know if this has been posted before - But what I did was right click on disk utility and set myself with read/write privileges and it worked.

Running a Macbook C2D
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E

[tyrell]

Cleaning also fixed this problem for me. I used the "cloth used for cleaning glasses wrapped around a plastic card" trick mentioned a page or two back. If you are going to try this make sure you are careful and used a non-embossed card! Don't use a credit card. I didn't put it in far - just about half it's length, 2 or 3 times in and out along the length of the slot.

At first i was really worried about this as i recently installed somewhat sketchy custom firmware so i could set the drive to region free. The language trick did not work, neither did PRAM or SMC resets. So phew! It really can be as simple as a dirty lens.

I have just registered here as I too had been experiencing the same burning issues as many, and even tried the langage change tip, but that failed to work, but what did work for me was using a simple lens cleaner dvd, running this a couple of times, cleaning the lens fixed all my problems, and I can now burn dvd's without any problems at all.


Just thought I would let you all know, if you too experience any problems burning, don't panic, simply clean your lens, and all will work fine.

[Rippeddisc]

+1 vote for blowing/cleaning drive.

blew in drive

took cloth around license and inserted in to drive back and forth a bit. not forcing. worked.

Sorry to beat the old horse but I just thought I'd throw in my two cents to say the Language trick worked for me... absolutely no clue why. Use it, don't use it whatever, but you're not gonna damage your comp by trying.

[stefan]

Hi,

For what it's worth here is my experience with this problem:
I've had this message several times on my G5 iMac when trying to burn a CD, never having had a problem with this before even though I'd burnt a number of other discs of the same media. I tried the 'international' solution and it worked for one disc with the same disc I tried when it didn't work (which had worked fine in the past). The second CD I tried to burn returned the message 'The attempt to burn a disc failed. The burn failed because of a medium write error.' Given this, I suppose I should try different discs - even though these ones have worked fine for me so far?
I hope I'm not repeating anything here as I only read the first page of the posts.

Stefan

[Jean]

I've been using Macs for 18 years. Now, this problem. I brought 25 TDK DVD's. I burnt 12 of them with no problem over a period of months. Then one rainy afternoon I watched a DVD. Nothing else has changed. (I'm a writer–I don't use it for anything else) By the way, I never turn off my Mac mini and it is set never to go to sleep. I've had it for 14 months.
Immediately, the next time I went to burn, I got this error–'failed to calibrate the laser power level.' I wasted three DVDs before I tried the voodoo (!) trick. It worked perfectly. By the way, I always burn at the lowest possible speed. Obviously, watching a DVD changes settings. Oh, and I didn't use International English, just English. And I didn't restart. Go figure!
Thank you all for this post.
Jean

The only thing that worked on my brand new MBP 6,2 was to change the permissions on Disk Utility to read/write for me. Works consistently now.

Ive been trying to get my DVD to burn DVD, however since upgrading to os x, the darn thing just didnt work. tried everything on this post, but no luck, however changed the speed from x8 to x6, all works fine :-)

Go buy a can of compressed air and blow some into the drive.

Be sure to keep it upright, as inverting it will make the air come out frozen and that will surely ruin your superdrive.

DO NOT believe that your drive is faulty, there is just some dust on the lens. It's as simple as that.

I found this out, because I discovered a thread in Apple Discussions. I won't retype everything, Below I've quoted the final word I put into my own Apple Discussion question, the link for which you can find here: http://discussions.apple.com/message...ageID=11512370

It's from the DVD 'skipping over errors' message, and yes both messages ('...lazer power level...' and 'skipping...') are related to the same problem.

Re: DVD 'skipping over errors' message
Posted: Oct 3, 2010 12:19 PM in response to: mrfracas

I did use a drive cleaner. It turned out the drive had dust in it. Though it was difficult to find some sensible advice on this front; I found a lot of similar problems when searching the web and found that the majority of answers suggested replacing the drive. Even Apple said that to me: a disappointingly expensive option. However, I went on a further scavenge for answers, and I discovered an Apple Discussions thread, thought when I clicked on the link it said discussions were down; I went back to Google and clicked on 'cached'. Lo and behold, my answer was there on the first page - get some compressed air and stick the nossle in there. Give a blow (DO NOT INVERT CAN OTHERWISE FROZEN STUFF WILL COME OUT) and the drive works. Interestingly it seemed that Apple Discussions was not down when I went to the homepage; however a few repeat visits to the same thread brought up the same 'Apple Discussions is Down' front page; when I viewed it in cached mode, I could see the content again...

I hope this helps.

Fortunately, since typing this out, I've found the link to the original thread, now available! http://discussions.apple.com/thread....54011&tstart=0

Very bizarre! But I hope this helps people out.

I have been banging my head against the wall with dvd burning getting a bunch of errors on my MBP. Have not had time to go to genius bar and stumbled on this post. I'm shocked it worked but worked like a charm.
landrick - this ranks as the best random fix ever. thanks!
-dave

Quote: Originally Posted by peanutboy Hello all, 1. tried the language/region thing 2. tried a dvd/cd cleaner disc still the same error 3. got pissed off 4. ??????????? 5. said "Ok F**k" it and put in a DVD movie to see if it would play. it did. 6. said "Ok F**k" again and tried burning the same iso that I had been trying to burn for several hours. 7. It worked.(profit) what the hell.

I've tried every idea on this forum (including peanutboy's) and NOTHING... I'm so upset... it happened to me before and I took it to the Apple guys and they said my dvd/cd writer/reader was bent and replaced it... This was while I was still under warranty... NOW ITS HAPPENED AGAIN!!! 'laser calibration' disaster..... C'mon Apple!!! What the heck??!?! I have no warranty now and have a useless DVD drive....

Someone... Anyone? HELP?

[trevor]

JustIsabelle, what computer do you have? Depending on the computer, new DVD burners can cost as little as $30.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optic...s/superdrives/

Trevor

I've been reading this forum for years, and never felt the need to post until now. I registered JUST to say how impressed I am that Landrick found that obscure language resolution almost 3 years ago! I'd been stuck with this problem since updating to 10.6.5 (never happened before) and I KNEW it wasn't a physical drive problem. The language thing worked a charm! Thank you!