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Problems writing to an optical drive: permissions

AllergyDoc

AllergyDoc

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 17, 2013
2,067
10,372
Utah, USA
I recently bought a Samsung external optical drive primarily to burn photos from iPhoto. It works fine on my late-2013 rMBP but will not work on my late-2013 27" iMac. I get this message every time:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission.
Click to expand...

I'm the admin on this computer (I'm also the only user) and I cannot figure out how to fix this. The drive will load recorded discs but as soon as I insert a blank CD I get the error message and the CD immediately ejects. It doesn't even show up on the desktop as it does with the rMBP.

10.9.1
2.9 i5 w/24 GB RAM

As all my photos are on my iMac, having the drive work on the rMBP doesn't help much.

thanks
 
AllergyDoc said:
...
I'm the admin on this computer (I'm also the only user) and I cannot figure out how to fix this. The drive will load recorded discs but as soon as I insert a blank CD I get the error message and the CD immediately ejects. It doesn't even show up on the desktop as it does with the rMBP.
...
Click to expand...

What does System Preferences for CDs & DVDs show? The setting for blank CDs may be incorrect. Attached is the default settings:
 

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Doesn't matter. I've tried different settings but still get the boot.

I set up a guest user, logged on with that account and the drive mounted fine. Too bad I couldn't see my photos. That tells me the permissions are somehow messed up.
 
I set up another admin user and the disc mounts fine. Also, if I click on Open iTunes when I insert the disc iTunes opens and the disc doesn't eject. However, the drive doesn't appear on the desktop.

Edit to add: I can burn a playlist with iTunes. When I do, the burned disc shows up on the desktop.
 
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I don't know if it will help but have you tried to Repair Permissions with Disk Utility? And running Verify Disk might be a good idea as well.

At this point if you haven't done this, it couldn't hurt to try.
 
I've both of those and they didn't help. But, there's no way to verify the optical drive and I can't see how verifying or checking permissions for a hard drive will help.
 
AllergyDoc said:
I've both of those and they didn't help. But, there's no way to verify the optical drive and I can't see how verifying or checking permissions for a hard drive will help.
Click to expand...
When you insert a blank disc it has to set up a burn folder on you disk and if the fodler it goes in to has its permissions set wrong that could be an issue. Since you mentioned it worked on a new admin account you might want to check the permissions on your Desktop folder of your original admin account. I've attached the Get Info window for my Desktop folder for you to compare yours against. This may not be where the permissions issue is, but it's definitely one of the places it could be.
 

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Thanks for your responses, Bear.

I did check permissions on the Desktop and I can read and write. I think it's a software problem. There are many threads about it on Apple's support site. I might pick up a Superdrive and see if it will work on both machines.
 
After many hours of investigation, I've decided this can't be fixed at present. I cannot use Finder to burn discs on my late-2012 iMac. Turns out, Finder is a lousy way to burn discs anyway.

However, the external optical drive works just fine on my iMac. Here's the workaround I discovered:

1. I downloaded a free disc burning app called Burn here. Drag it to the Applications folder and double click on it.

2. If your external optical drive is already plugged into your Mac, it will show up at the bottom of Burn's window. If it's not plugged in plug it in now and insert a blank disc.

3. When the box pops up asking you what you want to do with the disc, simply click on Ignore. The drive will not appear to be mounted on the desktop but Burn will function fine.

4. Drag the files you want on the disc into Burn. The app displays how much of the disc you've used by percentage (something Finder does not do).

5. When you're ready to burn, name the disc and make sure Burn's setting are correct in the drop down box in the upper right. For images, I think it's best to set it to Mac and PC.

6. Burn the disc.

Too bad it took me 6 hours of frustrating investigation to get to this simple solution (not counting the time it took to reinstall the OS).
 
Yes, I have same issue with my admin account. But when I change user to another admin user in the same mac, I got USB Samsung DVD writer mounter and all the options in Finder to burn the DVD.
It was MacBook Pro 15 2016 model, with macOS Sierra
 
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