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Put A Sony Lightscribe Optical Drive In Mac Pro & Encountered A Bunch Of Issues!

C

Chocolate Baby

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 16, 2009
32
0
When I Put A 20X Sony Lightscribe® Drive In The Secondary Optical Bay I Attached The Power And The IDE, I Checked To See If The Drives Were Initialized They Were Not Even Recognized.....The New Sony As Well As The Apple Stock Drive In The First Bay It Was Like I had Removed Both Of Them!

I Then Took Out The Apple Stock Optical And Put The New Sony Lightscribe Drive In Its Place, Leaving Only The One New Sony Drive In The Pro, It Was Recognized By The System However Would Not Open Due To The Fact That The Opening On The Mac Was To Small For The Shelf Of The Drive To Open. It Was Blocked! WTF!

I Instantly Thought I Must Have Messed Up The Install, However I Thoroughly Checked It Over And There Is Really No Way For Me To Mess It Up. Due To Where The Screws Line Up. It's Not Possible To Screw Up! No Pun intended.

So Whats Left Now? I Thought These Optical Drives Where Like Internal Hard Drives, USB's And Blank Disks...They Have Standard Dimensions For ALL CPU"S I Did not know that there are incompatible optical drives!

Does Anyone Know A: What Drives Are Compatible With The Xeon Mac Pro?

And B:How To Install A Secondary Drive That Actually Works?
 
Chocolate Baby said:
When I Put A 20X Sony Lightscribe® Drive In The Secondary Optical Bay I Attached The Power And The IDE, I Checked To See If The Drives Were Initialized They Were Not Even Recognized.....The New Sony As Well As The Apple Stock Drive In The First Bay It Was Like I had Removed Both Of Them!

I Then Took Out The Apple Stock Optical And Put The New Sony Lightscribe Drive In Its Place, Leaving Only The One New Sony Drive In The Pro, It Was Recognized By The System However Would Not Open Due To The Fact That The Opening On The Mac Was To Small For The Shelf Of The Drive To Open. It Was Blocked! WTF!

I Instantly Thought I Must Have Messed Up The Install, However I Thoroughly Checked It Over And There Is Really No Way For Me To Mess It Up. Due To Where The Screws Line Up. It's Not Possible To Screw Up! No Pun intended.

So Whats Left Now? I Thought These Optical Drives Where Like Hard Drive Bays, USB's And Blank Disks...They Have Standard Dimensions For ALL CPU"S I Did not know that there are incompatible optical drives!

Does Anyone Know A: What Drives Are Compatible With The Xeon Mac Pro?

And B:How To Install A Secondary Drive That Actually Works?
Click to expand...

These Are Very Good Questions.
 
Chocolate Baby said:
Yeah We Like It Like That! if I type like this will you bring something relevant to the thread
Click to expand...

So - in bay 2, the drive is not recognized. In bay 1 it is recognized, but the door doesn't work?

Would the door work in bay #1?

In bay #2, did you make sure you had the master/slave jumper on the drive set right? (Does it have such a jumper?)
 
cmaier said:
So - in bay 2, the drive is not recognized. In bay 1 it is recognized, but the door doesn't work?

Would the door work in bay #1?

In bay #2, did you make sure you had the master/slave jumper on the drive set right? (Does it have such a jumper?)
Click to expand...

yeah exactly I carefully examined the new sony drive and the disk shelf is just way to big its not even close. The jumper master slave question I am unclear on due to the fact that it has on the mac double power and double IDE for the optical I figured I just attach them. From what your saying about the master slave and jumpers I am wrong can you elaborate?
 
Chocolate Baby said:
yeah exactly I carefully examined the new sony drive and the disk shelf is just way to big its not even close. The jumper master slave question I am unclear on due to the fact that it has on the mac double power and double IDE for the optical I figured I just attach them. From what your saying about the master slave and jumpers I am wrong can you elaborate?
Click to expand...

In the old days there used to be a little jumper you had to remove (or add) to switch IDE drives from master to slave. More recently, I think, most drives automatically switch. But I don't know what your drive does.

This might help you understand: http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

Also, I remember reading somewhere that to fit in the MP case, you had to pull the lip off the front of the optical drive tray, and maybe replace it with something. I don't remember, and I may have read it wrong.
 
cmaier said:
In the old days there used to be a little jumper you had to remove (or add) to switch IDE drives from master to slave. More recently, I think, most drives automatically switch. But I don't know what your drive does.

This might help you understand: http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

Also, I remember reading somewhere that to fit in the MP case, you had to pull the lip off the front of the optical drive tray, and maybe replace it with something. I don't remember, and I may have read it wrong.
Click to expand...

It was the lip of the drive that was too big for it to eject...I can't be the only one that this has happened to. dont know how I would take that lip off Unless it was just this sony! that external lacie light scribe is looking sweeter by the minute
 
Chocolate Baby said:
It was the lip of the drive that was too big for it to eject...I can't be the only one that this has happened to. dont know how I would take that lip off Unless it was just this sony! that external lacie light scribe is looking sweeter by the minute
Click to expand...

http://mattclare.ca/wordpress/2009/03/20/state-of-the-mac-and-supporting-standards/

Here's a dude who had to "hack apart" the lip to get it to work.
 
cmaier said:
http://mattclare.ca/wordpress/2009/03/20/state-of-the-mac-and-supporting-standards/

Here's a dude who had to "hack apart" the lip to get it to work.
Click to expand...

Yeah I saw something similar I think its hysterical that I have to do that just to get a drive in and I am surprised that there was not more on this subject from apple! Thank you for the help my friend
 
I'm thousands of miles from my Mac Pro (2006) so I can't look at it, but I successfully installed a Sony optical drive in it. I can't remember which model -- early 2007.

Inspect the lip of the drive tray carefully. On mine, there were two small tabs on the rear of the lip that, when opened with a small flat-blade screwdriver, made it possible to take the large lip off.

On mine, the jumper on the original was set to "cable select" (CS), which means that the drive will sense whether it's on the far or near connector, and set itself to master or slave accordingly. I set my new drive to CS also, rather than mess with changing one to master and the other to slave.

It mostly works. But it (the new one) has had problems. Sometimes it gets into a cycle of opening and closing that I can't halt without using physical force.

But basically it works.
 
cmaier said:
In the old days there used to be a little jumper you had to remove (or add) to switch IDE drives from master to slave. More recently, I think, most drives automatically switch. But I don't know what your drive does.

This might help you understand: http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

Also, I remember reading somewhere that to fit in the MP case, you had to pull the lip off the front of the optical drive tray, and maybe replace it with something. I don't remember, and I may have read it wrong.
Click to expand...

monokakata said:
I'm thousands of miles from my Mac Pro (2006) so I can't look at it, but I successfully installed a Sony optical drive in it. I can't remember which model -- early 2007.

Inspect the lip of the drive tray carefully. On mine, there were two small tabs on the rear of the lip that, when opened with a small flat-blade screwdriver, made it possible to take the large lip off.

On mine, the jumper on the original was set to "cable select" (CS), which means that the drive will sense whether it's on the far or near connector, and set itself to master or slave accordingly. I set my new drive to CS also, rather than mess with changing one to master and the other to slave.

It mostly works. But it (the new one) has had problems. Sometimes it gets into a cycle of opening and closing that I can't halt without using physical force.

But basically it works.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is what it will be. The drives that come stock come as Cable select most newly shipped drives come as master. Its not just apple that makes their drives come as cable select is almost all OEMs. So correcting that will make both recognize.

And most drives have tabs to remove the front part of it like stated above. If not you have to find a way to remove the front piece.
 
Just check the jumper settings for both drive, you can just make them both cable select. You will have to remove the lip of the drive like others have said. I believe mine was glued on but with some force I was able to rip it off clean.
 
grue said:
Oh My God My Brain Is About To Go Critical Please Make It Stop.
Click to expand...

First of all... f'in hilarious. I love this post.

To the OP. There is a jumper you need to change. It should be set to cable select.
 
A) Apple's optical drives don't have the front plate/lip on the tray. On most drives, this is removable. Inspect the tray carefully with it open and see if there are tabs on the back to remove the front tray plate. Otherwise, it wont fit through the case opening.

B) As posted, make sure you've got the cable select/master/slave jumpers on each drive correctly positioned.
 
xraydoc said:
A) Apple's optical drives don't have the front plate/lip on the tray. On most drives, this is removable. Inspect the tray carefully with it open and see if there are tabs on the back to remove the front tray plate. Otherwise, it wont fit through the case opening.

B) As posted, make sure you've got the cable select/master/slave jumpers on each drive correctly positioned.
Click to expand...

YES GOT IT! I ripped the lip off the tray, now that I defaced my property I got it to eject so that was one down! and then I set the jumpers to cable select and got those mother !@##$#% working! GREAT SUCCESS JENSHAMESH! Thanks!
 
Which Sony drive did you get

Hay Chocolate Baby,

Which Sony drive did you get? How is the lightscribe working on that?
 
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