Adding 2nd Optical Drive in mac pro

[hatehereyes]

I've got a mac pro and i'm trying to add another optical drive in the second bay.

now i have the drive installed but for some reason it isn't being detected.
the eject button in the menu bar only shows the superdrive and i can only open the second drive with the option+eject keys on the keyboard but when i put in a disc nothing happens.

the drive i am trying to install is a
Pioneer DVD-115ME DVD-ROM Drive IDE

also i tried with an IDE hard drive and it wouldn't mount or anything.

 

[costabunny]

hmm ok if its ejecting then there is some communication there. Which version of Mac Pro and OS do you have?

 

[inigel]

I've got a mac pro and i'm trying to add another optical drive in the second bay.

now i have the drive installed but for some reason it isn't being detected.

Not to be condescending, but did you plug the power in? Is the cable firmly attached?

 

[brand]

What do you have the jumper set at? When I added mine I believe that the jumper has to be set on slave.

 

[sickmacdoc]

What do you have the jumper set at? When I added mine I believe that the jumper has to be set on slave.

That will probably work, but my original was set to CS (cable select) so I left it there and set the 2nd drive to CS as well and it worked perfectly. If my original had been set to Master then I would have set the 2nd to Slave for sure.

It will pay to take a second to check the first drive's jumpers before setting the jumpers on the 2nd drive.

 

[hatehereyes]

Checked jumper settings and made sure cables were securely in place.
The drive opens and closes normally but just won't get recognized in the OS or anything.

I have the earl 2008 mac pro 2x2.8ghz

 

[sickmacdoc]

I have to admit that I am stumped on this one.... but I was curious as what your original drive was jumpered at when you checked-- Master or Cable Select?

EDIT: Ok a couple more thoughts as I just looked up the specific drive you are trying to install. Is this a drive you already had and had pulled from a Compaq computer? I ask because I see that everywhere that lists the Pioneer 115ME says it is a Compaq drive, so I am wondering if there is some specific Compaq firmware on that release of the 115 that might be causing conflicts in the MP. I also find it quite curious that everywhere that is selling them is asking $110+ for that drive-- in light of the fact that a standard 115 like I used is sold for about $30 from favorite suppliers like newegg.com and OWC (ok well actually they have been upgraded now to the newer Pioneer 116 drives, but the prices remain the same.)

Something just doesn't fit with the combination of the Compaq designation and the outrageous price but I can't put my finger on it. If you were in New Hampshire I'd love to stick one of my extra standard 112s or 111s in to troubleshoot (or try your 115ME in one of my systems here) as I can't help but feel that could well solve the problem since I have installed standard OEM Pioneers in quite a few Mac Pros with no difficulties.

 

[hatehereyes]

yeah i just pretty muched took it out of a compaq OEM machine that was a few years old which originally had Windows ME on it.
not sure what firmware is on the drive but any idea of how i can update the firmware?

and unfortunatley i don't live in New Hampshire..i live actually across the country in Southern California..

 

[sickmacdoc]

Figures-- that is where I lived until about 6 months ago!

There are firmware updaters out there for various Pioneer drives- here is one forum that I have read in the past at various times that has good info usually- http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=43374 Look around in the index and you can find threads about the appropriate firmware flasher software to use with Macintosh and such BUT- I really don't know if the updaters will work with a specific company's firmware on there to start with. I have never had a reason to try on the Apple firmware ones I remove from various systems as they are normally being updated with newer Pioneer drives.

If you find the Macintosh firmware flasher software and the correct firmware files you will find out quick enough whether they will work when you try to apply them. It will not normally brick a drive- it will usually tell you that the firmware update cannot successfully be applied instead, but stuff happens as you will see in the threads!

You can try that first- but still keep in mind that a faster 116 drive that should take care of the problem is $29.99 at Newegg Pioneer 116 and would even be the right color to match the stock one!

Good luck with it and let us now how it goes!