Can I bypass the iMac's SuperDrive

[bstieg]

I am fairly ignorant about computers, so bear with me. But please try to help!

The SuperDrive in our 2-year-old iMac conked out and we desperately need to burn a DVD.

I borrowed a Plextor burner from work, hooked it up via FireWire.

But how do I make the computer recognize this external Plextor burner? When we go to iDVD and try to burn, it obviously spits out the tray and asks us to insert a disk. We want it to use the Plextor.

Any kind souls out there know how we can bypass the iMac's SuperDrive?

 

[mklos]

I am fairly ignorant about computers, so bear with me. But please try to help!

The SuperDrive in our 2-year-old iMac conked out and we desperately need to burn a DVD.

I borrowed a Plextor burner from work, hooked it up via FireWire.

But how do I make the computer recognize this external Plextor burner? When we go to iDVD and try to burn, it obviously spits out the tray and asks us to insert a disk. We want it to use the Plextor.

Any kind souls out there know how we can bypass the iMac's SuperDrive?

iDVD will ONLY work with SuperDrives that ship with the Mac. That is why its not working. There isn't an easy way around this. There have been some reports of faking out iDVD with some DVD Burners. Look on www.xlr8yourmac.com

 

[Sun Baked]

The burning programs are actually looking for the DVD on a specific ATA bus, www.xlr8yourmac.com should give you a good idea which drives will work as a replacement.

Though it'll probably require you R&Ring the internal drive in the machine.

 

[unixkid]

lol

Buy the "Pioneer DVR-A07XLB" its an 8x dvd+/-RW burner for $150 and it works the same but faster with iDVD. I have it and it was recommended by an apple rep. at the apple store to me.

Apples superdrives are typically over priced Pioneers drives.
iDVD doesnt work with external dvd burners because it doesnt work with the oxford firewire bridge.