Second DVD Drive install not working

[juju01]

I just installed the plextor px-760A dvd drive in the second optical drive bay in my new mac pro. I have set the jumper to cable select. After rebooting, both drives now dont show up at all - the apple installed drive and my new one are now not available.

I opened up the machine again to check the cabling to make sure its all seated correctly, then rebooted again - no luck. the eject button cant even open the original drive. i did a system profile and there was no dvd drive listed. I have an eject button on my top menu bar which shows "No Drives" if you click on it.

I am sure a couple of folks here have installed the plextor. what have i missed? thanks

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

I just installed the plextor px-760A dvd drive in the second optical drive bay in my new mac pro. I have set the jumper to cable select. After rebooting, both drives now dont show up at all - the apple installed drive and my new one are now not available.

I opened up the machine again to check the cabling to make sure its all seated correctly, then rebooted again - no luck. the eject button cant even open the original drive. i did a system profile and there was no dvd drive listed. I have an eject button on my top menu bar which shows "No Drives" if you click on it.

I am sure a couple of folks here have installed the plextor. what have i missed? thanks

I wish I could help you but I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would need two optical drives in the first place. Maybe one for burning and one for importing (simultaneously)?

 

[bigbird]

I wish I could help you but I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would need two optical drives in the first place?

The reason I also have 2 optical drives is because I have 2 quad core processors. The number "two" sounds so much better than "one". The more the merrier.

To try and answer the OP's question, perhaps the Plextor is just not a Mac recognizable drive and it messes up the IDE path. I have an additional Pioneer 115 and both drives work perfectly.

 

[juju01]

The reason I also have 2 optical drives is because I have 2 quad core processors. The number "two" sounds so much better than "one". The more the merrier.

To try and answer the OP's question, perhaps the Plextor is just not a Mac recognizable drive and it messes up the IDE path. I have an additional Pioneer 115 and both drives work perfectly.

I have taken out the plextor drive after not being able to get it to work - now the apple installed drive is not recognizable as well.

I use the second drive to perform all ripping activities. I prefer to use a dedicated drive for that....

 

[GotPro]

I wish I could help you but I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would need two optical drives in the first place. Maybe one for burning and one for importing (simultaneously)?

There are several excellent reasons for having 2 Optical drives in the Mac Pro:

1 If you want a faster ripping drive such as certain CDRW drives which can rip feature length films in as little as 3-5 minutes but want to retain the DVDRW drive for the ability to burn DVDs of all kinds.

2 If you run virtual machines such as Linux or Windows in Vmware, you can dedicate a second drive to that virtual machine and still have a drive free for the Mac OS. Without this second drive, everytime you want either the Virtual Machine OR the Mac OS to access a disk you must manually have the desired OS "grab" hold of the drive... At which point it is unusable in the other OS.

3 If you want to be able to install software that is on multiple CDs/DVDs and have the installer ask you for a new disk 1/2 as often.

I'm sure there are more... But this is what comes quickly to mind!

 

[pastrychef]

Check the IDE cable. Make sure it didn't get messed up.