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ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
Are all the internal IDE DVD burners for PC's compatible with macs? can I whack any burner in there? If not whats the best mac internal DVD burner? I have a G4 867Mhz

thanks
 

Finiksa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2003
595
13
Australia
Not all PC burners are compatible, they may work by they won't have native disk burning or iApp support.

Apple mostly use Pioneer drives, get a DVR-107 model and it should work.
 

seamuskrat

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2003
898
19
New Jersey USA
I have used Pioneer DVDR just fine. I personnaly have used aftermarket Pioneer 107D drives and 104A drives just fine with my macs.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com has a database with drive compatability reports.

Check around, but the Pioneer 107-D can be had for less than $85.00 delivered. I bought mine on Ebay 3 weeks ago, and its a good drive. There is also a firmware (unauthorzied) that will speed the read and write speeds on some media, which is nice.
 

bidge

macrumors 6502
Jul 16, 2002
286
0
New Zealand
I agree with the above, I use a Dual 800 and I recently swapped out my DVR-103 for a new DVR-107. worked perfectly without any problems at all. Including iDVD without any hacks which was very cool.

xlr8yourmac.com has hepas of people detailing how it worked, if you want to know anything about the 107 then ask back, also the DVR-106 is a really good quality drive (all these are by pioneer by the way) that you might be able to get cheaper than the 107, the 107 can burn DVD's at 8x but apart from that no real advantage.
 

ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
Finiksa said:
Not all PC burners are compatible, they may work by they won't have native disk burning or iApp support.

Apple mostly use Pioneer drives, get a DVR-107 model and it should work.

I called Pioneer this afternoon and the tech guy said that the 107 is not officially compatible with the Mac and people have varying degrees of success using it with Macs and that Pioneer do not make a Mac compatible DVD burner. however they do make the Superdrives for Apple but they are modified.

so it looks like a LaCie internal for me.
http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?id=10108
 

osprey76

macrumors 6502
May 3, 2004
300
0
Oklahoma City, OK
The DVR 107 worked fine for me. It's recognized natively in OS X and that's the drive shipping in the latest Macs with Superdrives.

What Mac are you running? I have a Gigabit era machine and haven't had any issues at all. All I had internally up to the upgrade was the Apple DVD player (no burning capability.)
 

ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
osprey76 said:
The DVR 107 worked fine for me. It's recognized natively in OS X and that's the drive shipping in the latest Macs with Superdrives.

What Mac are you running? I have a Gigabit era machine and haven't had any issues at all. All I had internally up to the upgrade was the Apple DVD player (no burning capability.)

I've a G4 867Mhz Quicksilver running 10.2.8. I don't really want to be patching and hacking to get it to work, surely there must be plug n play replacement drive.

Thanks
 

bidge

macrumors 6502
Jul 16, 2002
286
0
New Zealand
Don't worry what Pioneer tells you I know three people that have put the Pioneer's into their macs without a problem.

I have a quicksilver and my old burner was getting bad so I replaced it with this and it worked perfectly, much better than the original apple shipped one.

I have put a hack onto mine since though, to allow 8x burning on all discs, but I only use it when I'm in a rush on good discs.
 

krimson

macrumors 65816
ump3 said:
I've a G4 867Mhz Quicksilver running 10.2.8. I don't really want to be patching and hacking to get it to work, surely there must be plug n play replacement drive.

Thanks


if you dont care about the 8x burning, then get the DVR-106 (4x +/-RW), im still using 10.2.8 on my QS, and it has native support. If you do decide to get a 107, and it doesn't recognize immediately, try and return it and go somewhere else for a different batch. As long as the ASP says DVR-107RW or something like that, it'll work.

you might want to scroll thru http://www.xlr8yourmac.com's drive database. Im sure you'll find most people have gotten it to work without doing the PC firmware update route.
 

Coolvirus007

macrumors regular
Apr 27, 2004
210
0
Tokyo
official reps never say anything is compatible with macs. I installed the DVR-107 and its fine. Take some advice from your fellow mac users.
 

seamuskrat

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2003
898
19
New Jersey USA
I have put OEM Pioneer 104 and 107D drives into the following Macs with NO problems:

G4 500, G4 900, and G4 Quicksilver. All work flawlessly without any hacks, software to instal or anything.

I would suspect the LaCie is a Pioneer drive anyway, as LaCie is not a large enough company to be manufacturing its own optical devices (in my opinion).

What is officially supported and what works is very different. The actual Apple Superdrive is the same drive with a different firmware (I am 99% sure this is accurate) and in the case of the 107D, the OEM drive has full capability while the Superdrive is crippled with no DVD+ support.

ump3 said:
I've a G4 867Mhz Quicksilver running 10.2.8. I don't really want to be patching and hacking to get it to work, surely there must be plug n play replacement drive.

Thanks
 

ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
seamuskrat said:
What is officially supported and what works is very different. The actual Apple Superdrive is the same drive with a different firmware (I am 99% sure this is accurate) and in the case of the 107D, the OEM drive has full capability while the Superdrive is crippled with no DVD+ support.

Does it have to be a 107D (as opposed to a 107? are there 2 models even?)
I'm in the UK.

Native Support is where the OS 100% recognises the drive as opposed to only a certain App (toast etc..), right? I'd want it to be recognised and be useable in any circumstance, not just in an app.

Cheers
 

Finiksa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2003
595
13
Australia
ump3 said:
I called Pioneer this afternoon and the tech guy said that the 107 is not officially compatible with the Mac

Whoever you spoke to is feeding you a load of FUD, the PC and Mac drives are identical internally.

ump3 said:
Does it have to be a 107D (as opposed to a 107? are there 2 models even?)

There is:
The OEM version -107D
Black OEM version -107BK
Retail version -107XL/-107XLA/-107XLB (There may be some more in foreign markets also.)

Avoid the XL models they have a funky looking face plate that could interfere with you Powermacs drive door. Other than that they're all the same.

The models released earlier were not recognised because of the earlier firmware version, the current ones on sale should be recognised just fine.

It's also a good idea to upgrade to the latest firmware anyway as it provides support for a wider range of DVD-R/RW media and helps insure native support.


Basically you aren't going to find any other brand with native support, Apple only include native support for brands they ship from the factory. Which leaves Pioneer and a small number of Sony drives with native support.
 

ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
Finiksa said:
Basically you aren't going to find any other brand with native support, Apple only include native support for brands they ship from the factory. Which leaves Pioneer and a small number of Sony drives with native support.

do you know If I update the firmware so it runs with 10.2.8 ( using pathcburn1.1 as per xlr8yourmac.com) if I then upgrade to 10.3.3 it'll need something else doing with it? if 10.3.3 has DVR-107 support maybe I should upgrade first, problem is the 10.3 I have is on a DVD!! :eek:
 

Finiksa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2003
595
13
Australia
ump3 said:
do you know If I update the firmware so it runs with 10.2.8 ( using pathcburn1.1 as per xlr8yourmac.com) if I then upgrade to 10.3.3 it'll need something else doing with it? if 10.3.3 has DVR-107 support maybe I should upgrade first, problem is the 10.3 I have is on a DVD!! :eek:

I think the drive should work fine as a CD/DVD reader without being patched first (patch burn), it just won't burn with Apple apps in 10.2.8 but will with Toast etc.

So if you install the drive you shouldn't have any problems reading the 10.3 installer disk. If you find you can't burn after upgrading to 10.3.3 you probably have a very early firmware that needs upgrading.
 

ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
Finiksa said:
I think the drive should work fine as a CD/DVD reader without being patched first (patch burn), it just won't burn with Apple apps in 10.2.8 but will with Toast etc.

So if you install the drive you shouldn't have any problems reading the 10.3 installer disk. If you find you can't burn after upgrading to 10.3.3 you probably have a very early firmware that needs upgrading.

thanks for that, much appreiciated. Do you know if I'll definetly have to remove the flap/door on my G4? has anyone managed replacing an internal optical drive and left the door intact (ie: so it flaps open only when the CD drawer is open).

cheers
 

seamuskrat

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2003
898
19
New Jersey USA
Its actually very easy to instal and leave the flap door intact.
You are removing a standard 5.25 Optical drive and replacing with another of the same dimensions. Nothing will change.

Depending on your model, its merely a few screws to replace, and then you have a new drive.
 

Finiksa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2003
595
13
Australia
Like seamuskrat said you shouldn't need to remove the drive door, installing it will be a different procedure depending on what model Powermac you have which might require removing the front face panel and drive door from the Powermac temporally.

However the retail drives have a rectangular plate attached to the front of the drive tray. Look at your current drive, if it doesn't have this then you'll have to remove it from the new drive to prevent it from interfering with the drive door. Don't worry, these usually just unclip from the tray.
 

ump3

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2003
97
0
Finiksa said:
I think the drive should work fine as a CD/DVD reader without being patched first (patch burn), it just won't burn with Apple apps in 10.2.8 but will with Toast etc.

So if you install the drive you shouldn't have any problems reading the 10.3 installer disk. If you find you can't burn after upgrading to 10.3.3 you probably have a very early firmware that needs upgrading.

Got my drive today, did just what you said and it all went without a hitch. running 10.3.4 now and ASP is saying

"Manufacturer: PIONEER
Model: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D
Revision: 1.15
Drive Type: CD-RW/DVD-RW
Disc Burning: Apple Supported/Shipped"

I haven't actually burned a DVD yet but am confident! (famous last words) :eek:

thanks for the help.
 

Finiksa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2003
595
13
Australia
ump3 said:
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D
Apple Supported/Shipped

Those are the two important things that you need to see, Pioneer originally sold some 107Ds that didn't have the dash in the name. OS X wouldn't recognise then as Supported/Shipped drives. Looks like you got a newer one so you don't need to flash it unless you want it region free.

Glad I could help, enjoy the new burner.
 
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