Just installed a superdrive in my MDD G4. It doesn't see blank DVD's or CD's.What did I do wrong this time?
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New superdrive doesn't see DVD's on MDD
- Thread starter ed-kelly55
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Maybe the MDD isn't familiar with the type of drive you installed. Did you run all the software updates? There's also a Superdrive firmware update on the Apple page, might give that a shot. I'm betting one of those two will fix your problem.
I tried running the firmware update but it said it would not run on my computer. I'm running OSX10.5.8. I tried 3 different brands because I thought maybe there is a problem with the disks.
Well, this is a shot in the dark, but possibly it does see the DVDs and CDs but just isn't telling you. You could have the Finder preferences set to "Ignore" when blank media is inserted. Now if you tried burning a disc with Toast or Disk Utility and inserted a blank CD when prompted and it STILL didn't see it, then something else is going on. Let me think a bit.
I put a blank DVD or CD in the unit and it just spits it back out. This drive is out of an identicle computer that died. The drive was tested in another computer and it worked fine. The preferences are set correctly.
I assume you've already restarted the computer a few times as well? Time to start swapping out the power and IDE cables to that drive I guess. Or possibly a master/slave setting issue between optical drives and/or hard drives on the same IDE cable?
I just reset the pram, and I swapped out the IDE cable, I'm running Leopard as my OS. There is something that I'm missing and I can't find it. This is making me crazy. 
Does it mount non-bland discs? Did you make sure the jumper on the drive was set to Cable Select (CS)?
Jumper is set to cs. I removed the superdrive and put the DVD rom back in and that works fine, but now I can't burn DVD's. So the imovie I am doing can't be burned.
"Have you considered picking up one of those $20 IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 adapters? Might be worth a shot considering how cheap they are and easy to use."
Another option might be to check newegg (or elsewhere) for a 5.25" form factor external USB2/Firewire enclosure, and run the drive externally. I found an ATAPI enclosure there for $23, shipped.
Another thought:
Did you attempt to mount the drive as a _second_ 5.25" drive (i.e., "below" the existing optical drive)?
I'm wondering if "cable select" was the wrong choice to use insofar as ATAPI drives are concerned. Others will have to jump in with the answer. Perhaps you might set the jumpers to "slave" (assuming the already-installed optical drive is set to "master") and try again.
Another option might be to check newegg (or elsewhere) for a 5.25" form factor external USB2/Firewire enclosure, and run the drive externally. I found an ATAPI enclosure there for $23, shipped.
Another thought:
Did you attempt to mount the drive as a _second_ 5.25" drive (i.e., "below" the existing optical drive)?
I'm wondering if "cable select" was the wrong choice to use insofar as ATAPI drives are concerned. Others will have to jump in with the answer. Perhaps you might set the jumpers to "slave" (assuming the already-installed optical drive is set to "master") and try again.
I had installed a Pioneer 8xDVD burner in an old G4. had to run PatchBurn to make it work until I upgraded to 10.3.9.
When that machine died I pulled it out and put it in a Firewire enclosure and use it with an eMac with no burner and my 12" PowerBook with a 2x burner.
Finally, piggy backed both. Set jumpers on cs for DVD burner (top slot) and slave for CD (bottom slot). Both show up in the profiler and both show up in the tool bar. CD works great and the DVD reads disks but will not burn a blank disk. I've tried TDK's and maxell DVD's. I reset the pram and inserted a recorded DVD before trying the blank according to Apple instructions. HELP !!! I believe this is the challenge of the year !