Can someone explain why video DVDs and data DVDs that I've burned using a 17" MBPro (Core Duo, 2.16GHz, 2GB, 10.4.8) do not work on an older Mac --- a G4-450 (AGP Sawtooth, 10.3.9, DVD-ROM--Matshita SR8585)?
You're probably right about this. Manufactured discs are more reflective than burned ones, so they are more reliably read by older drives; the older drives were designed before the writable discs were common (or even existed, in some cases), so they were only designed to read the more reflective pressed discs. Similarly, if a particular brand is less reflective than another, it might fail to be read--again, I mention the older blue Verbatim CD-R media versus, say, Sony's, which was a more reflective green; my CD player and older computer's CD-ROM drive would only read the Sony discs.I'm thinking the old drive doesn't like certain brands of DVD media, but it reads every store bought music CD and movie DVD I've put in it.
Either will work fine, but if you replace the internal you save the ~$30 or so on a 5.25" FireWire case. Of course, the flip side is that you can plug the external into both computers easily, but since you've already got a burner in your newer one, it's probably not that big of a deal. Me, I'd probably go internal just 'cause I'm cheap.Should I replace the internal or buy an external?