usb superdrive and and Mac M1?
I have the drive attached directly. A music cd functions predictably. A blank cd, to which I want to move some photographs, won't work. The system doesn't even acknowledge the drive exists.
iPhone 8, iOS 16
What Mac??? What OS version is it running???
That is important for troubleshooting such issues in this setting as we, your fellow end users, can neither see nor touch your tech gear to find out. We must rely on good descriptions from you.
That said, some general point on the subject of the badly out-of-date USB SuperDrive:
1) Is the SuperDrive (SD) new, or has it worked in the past or on another Mac?
2) Does the drive spit out the disk, or do you hear expected optical drive noises?
3) By default, macOS will NOT show optical disks on the Desktop. Finder Preferense must be changed for that to happen:
4) No optical drives will appear on the desktop or Finder sidebar until a disk is mounted in the drive.
5) If you are using a USB-to-USB-C adapter to attache toa newr mac model, is it a Apple-branded adapter. There is some thought here among smart people who help here that the Apple adapters work better. One of these:
USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter
6) This last point is not intended to be insulting or flippant, but I must ask because it is the #1 cause of problems in USB SuperDrives not working as expected: Is the silver side up?