Second DVD drive always shows bad blocks

[Analog Kid]

I'm trying to install a second DVD reader into an early 2008 Mac Pro. It's an IDE interface.

I've tried two drives now, a LiteOn iHAP422 and a Pioneer DVR-A18M. I've tried setting the jumper to CS and Slave.

In all cases, when I mount a DVD in FairMount, it shows 900+ bad sectors. The same DVDs show no bad sectors in the existing SuperDrive (Optiarc something) or an external USB mounted drive.

Anybody have any ideas what's going on here? Thanks.

 

[Analog Kid]

I think I may have figured this out. I assumed it had something to do with having two IDE drives competing for resources, so I pulled the second drive, disassembled the Mac Pro, and made use of those hidden SATA ports behind the fan cowling.

Same problem.

Looking at the console, I noticed a ton of css errors coming out of Fairmount. It dawned on me that maybe the drive needed its region set before it would play nice. Sure enough, open a disc in DVD player, set the region, close DVD player and everything is back up to speed.

It is not entirely clear to me why I need to set the region on a drive before I strip the CSS and back up the DVD, but it does seem to be a necessary step.