Macworld forum visitor, Hawaiian Starman is having problems with the SuperDrive in his iMac G4. Specifically:
When burning a CD-R in iTunes, the burn begins and immediately stops, ejecting the CD. An error message appears “the device drained its buffer without burn underrun protection.” First time I have seen this message.
He then goes on to include a portion of the console log that pertains to the failed burn. Within that log appears this ominous message: “Power calibration area error.”
Pioneer tells us:
A power calibration error is normally caused by problems with the media. Should you be experiencing problems with your drive or the media, we recommend that a disk from a good quality manufacturer be used to test it.
However, after some Web sleuthing I’ve discovered that switching media isn’t always the answer. Some have suggested that a drive’s dirty lens can cause this problem. This problem can also arise if the drive is on its way out.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.