I can't burn CD's :(

[BrandonHajile]

Hello, I've had my trusty Macintosh G4 for six years now, I'm all too happy with it. Recently I've decided to use the CD Burn option which I never actually used since I never needed it. However, I can't get the thing to work, I have no clue what I'm doing wrong. Here's some fast things about the Mac I'm using.

Mac OS X Verison 10.3.5
Processor 400 MHz PowerPC G4
Memory 768 MB SDRAM

I bought a bunch of Memorex CD-R blank CD's to use, but when I put them in the Macintosh, it doesn't read them. The icon does not appear, it's as if the Mac doesn't even know it is there. Sometimes one of my friends will bring over a CD with burned movies on them, but now and then the Mac won't read them either. What's wrong with my Macintosh, it never had any problems before, how come it's having trouble reading these blank and burned CD's?

Please help me, thanks very much in advance.

[mklos]

Some older CDROM drives won't read blank or burned CDs, though your CDROM Drive should be a problem. It sounds to me like your CDROM Drive is slowly dying on you, OR it just needs to be cleaned. Most stores have CDROM drive cleaners, even Wal-Mart has them. Try cleaning it, and if that doesn't work then I'd say you need to buy a new CD-R/RW Drive to make burning possible again. Make sure that the drive is compatible with OS X's Burn app, or compatible with Toast. If you have a FireWire port on your PowerMac, you might just think about getting an external CD-RW drive. They're getting cheaper all the time since the introduction of the CD-RW/DVD-RW drives and the new Dual Layer DVD-R/CD-R/RW Drives. So they shouldn't cost you much.

I use the Memorex CD-R's all the time on my Flat Panel iMac without any trouble so I'm fairly confident that its not the brand of media you chose.

[yellow]

It's probable that you don't actually have a CD burner, which would explain why you don't see blank CDs.

Please post the results of "drutil info" in the Terminal. It'll look something like this:

yellow% drutil info
 Vendor   Product           Rev 
 PIONEER  DVD-RW  DVR-105   A506

   Interconnect: ATAPI
   SupportLevel: Apple Shipping
          Cache: 2000k
       CD-Write: -R, -RW, BUFE, CDText, Test, IndexPts, ISRC
      DVD-Write: -R, -RW, BUFE, Test
     Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO

[BrandonHajile]

I'm pretty sure the reason is because I don't have a CD Burner installed in this Macintosh G4. You'd figure it would have been made with one, but that isn't the case. I'm interested in buying a DVD/CD Burner to install inside the computer. My question is, is it hard to install and what would be a good choice model for the Macintosh that I have? Thanks very much!

[yellow]

Other World Computing has all the info that you need. Just go to that page, select your model of G4, and it'll tell you what's available, some model info, and the prices.

I just bought a new DVR-108 to put in my Quicksilver this weekend. It's significantly faster then the 103 it came with. Yay, can't wait!