Upgrade to Lion 10.8

[tedschmitt]

I have an iMac. OS X 10.6.8. the mac is 4 yrs old. out of warranty. Home use. pictures, Word, etc.
I have 2 questions:
1. Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 is coming out this summer. Will I need to have Lion 10.7 loaded in my mac to upgrade to 10.8?
2. My super drive (Matshita DVD-R UJ-875) keeps kicking disks out as soon as I put them in. Thus I can't use it. External drives don't work on this mac. Is there a replacement for the super drive that I can buy, hopefully an upgrade, with installation instructions? (As I said - out of warranty.)

 

[Kaveman]

1. Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 is coming out this summer. Will I need to have Lion 10.7 loaded in my mac to upgrade to 10.8?

Yes, just like you need Snow Leopard to upgrade to Lion.

The only user serviceable parts are the RAM, replacing the SuperDrive requires specialist knowledge and tools. I would recommend taking it to an Apple Service Centre near you.

Are you sure external drives aren't being seen or just that they don't show in Finder? Check Finder > Preference.

 

[jnaeve]

Good point Kaveman...

tedschmitt:
Here are a couple additional observations/recommendations...
- Going all the way back to Tiger, I've always been able to attach an external drive to my Mac and the Mac OSX reads the drive without an issue.
-- If replacing the internal SuperDrive is not feasible, try buying an inexpensive USB/CD/DVD drive and attaching via USB port to the iMac. You shouldn't have any trouble getting it upgraded.
- If you're technically savvy, there are resources available to guide you toward replacing the SuperDrive yourself. "Other World Computing" (aka www.macsales.com ) have tremendous resources including the product itself to help you replace the drive. If this is something you'd rather not take on, I recommend taking Kaveman's advice and take it to your local Mac service center (either Apple Store or another certified Apple repair center).