Superdrive Questions

[menoinjun]

I have a dual 533, and I have the ability to buy a superdrive off of someone with a new dual 1gig powermac for $100. I am going to simply switch my CDRW and his Superdrive, but does anyone forsee any problems with this? If I just pop it in my machine, will it automatically be supported, or do models equipped with it standard from the factory come with extra drivers? Also, if I get it, I can't use it until I have iDVD. Any suggestions on where I can get it? Does Apple sell it seperately?

I am very familiar with the physical installation, but I just want to avoid any possible conflicts so that I don't inconvience the friend that is doing this for me.

Thanks

-Pete

 

[MacAztec]

Dont Worry

I bought the exact Pioneer Superdrive that apple uses, and put it in my G4 400. I rebooted, and everything was perfect. You will encounter no problems.

 

[arn]

Everything should work out. At least with the older Pioneer drives... this worked fine...

Just install the drive internally.
Get iDVD (your friend will have it installed on his system) - alterantively, buy iDVD2 upgrade from Apple ($19.95 upgrade) - and install it on your system (it doesn't check for older versions)

iDVD2 should recognize the drive internally.
As well, Toast will be able to burn to the disc (data DVD-R's 4.7gig)

Good luck.

arn

 

[MovieManDan]

I just wanted to let you know that would work fine I did that with my tower and Its freaking awesome!! I posted my results on xlr8yourmac.com heres the link to the page regarding superdrive upgrades to non superdrive G4's. Heres one word of advice though don't do this upgrade unless you don't care about Apple Care lol. Heres the results I put up on Xlr8yourmac.com:

Reviewer's Name: Dan Ross
Date Submitted: 10/6/2001
Drive Type: DVD-R DVD Recorder
Drive Interface: IDE
Drive Brand: Pioneer
Drive Model Number: Apple OEM Part aka (DVR-A03)
Drive Size: N/A
Driver Used: Apple Standard
Mac Model: Apple G4 Dual CPU
Mac OS Version: OS X and 9.2.2
Reader Comments: I just recently added an Apple Super Drive to my computer Dual 533 with Radeon Card (with built-in encoding for DVD-R) It took about an hour to install the drive due to the fact that it wasn't designed for my tower but instead the 733. The part came in an Apple OEM box and everything ( I ordered it from a local Dealer won't mention names on this site)

My first DVD took roughly a half an hour to encode and burn and and have completed since then i have gone on to make over 25 DVD's of my films from flim school and some home movies.

I got iDVD from the same retailer as they were installing my drive they were wanting to see if this would be a selling point for someone in my situation that had a Dual with out DVD drive. It works and I just wanted to pass this along!

Mike Comments: Thanks. There were some reports of iDVD not installing on pre-DA models in the past (some said it did - but it would not install on mine - perhaps looking for the superdrive.) BTW - All the Superdrives I have seen are reported by Apple System profiler as "Pioneer DVR-103" drives vs AO3 (even the retail models I hear). What is the firmware of your drive? (ASP shows this as the drive revision - last QS superdrive I saw was v1.44)
The Digital Audio G4/733s (Jan. 2001) have a similar CD housing as the earlier G4/AGP models ( I have worked on both) - but the Quicksilver (summer 2001) models have a different CD mouting scheme.
The main http://www.xlr8yourmac.com IDE articles page, CD/DVD/CDRW section has an install guide for several macs including G4/AGP systems (but not the Quicksilver G4 models - Apple's CIP pages cover that)

Have you noticed how slow the Superdrive seems at CDROM reading/copying and audio extraction? Very slow in my experience with two models, even in a DA G4/733. (in OS 9 at least -
OS X 10.1's caching makes it seem much better) - but OS 9 seems very very slow with the Superdrive for installs, copying files, etc

 

[menoinjun]

thanks!

Thanks a lot! A couple of follow ups though...

1. Are you positive that the upgrade for iDVD 2 doesn't check for a previous version? I am pretty sure that it checks for a superdrive, but I don't know about previous versions. I don't mean to doubt your knowledge, but I just want to be sure before I drop $20 for what could be a nice looking coaster.

2. What do you think this could do for the resale value of my computer? I've got:

Dual 533
768mb ram
40gig 7200
SUPERDRIVE!! yay
Radeon 32mb ddr

Maybe I'll try and pull the same deal with his GeForce4 and my Radeon...driver conflicts? I'd have to get them from somewhere. Any ideas?

Thanks again!

-Pete

 

[arn]

Re: thanks!

Originally posted by ptrauber
Thanks a lot! A couple of follow ups though...

1. Are you positive that the upgrade for iDVD 2 doesn't check for a previous version? I am pretty sure that it checks for a superdrive, but I don't know about previous versions. I don't mean to doubt your knowledge, but I just want to be sure before I drop $20 for what could be a nice looking coaster.

This is based on what I have heard... here are a couple of links that hint at it as well:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=CIJ58.6436$ks5.608491@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=nospam-D3605F.22290129012002@news.apple.com

arn

 

[burner]

SuperDrive Data CD

Can anyone help with this?

Running OS 9.2.2 on a 733 mhz g4 with superdrive and a gig of RAM.

When a blank DVD (one of the ones that came with it) is
inserted I get: This disk cannot be read by this machine, yada yada...disk must be initialized.

When I click on initialize, it just ejects the blank dvd and says, "The disk cannot be initialized because it it locked"

There are 3 initialize drop down options:

mac os standard,
mac extended,
and the third one aaaa...UHF universal, or something like that
( the computer is at work, so I dont have it in front o me)

The only one that doesnt spit the disk out and give me the "locked disk" error is the "mac os extended" .
That pops up a progress bar and starts counting down from around 35 billion or something like that and then crashes the machine at about 26 bazillilon or so.

We would really like to burn some data DVDs at my work place.

Cant find any info anywhere.

Anyone know anything?

thank ya,

 

[mstur]

Re: SuperDrive Data CD

Originally posted by burner
Can anyone help with this?

We would really like to burn some data DVDs at my work place.

Cant find any info anywhere.

Anyone know anything?

thank ya,

There has been some discussion on this topic already last year on http://www.macintouch.com. As far as I know - and I should know because I just bought a G4 with Superdrive to backup data to DVD-R - you need Roxios Toast Titanium in order to burn Data DVD-R !

Sorry, but Apple just wants you to burn DVDs of your videos, just making boring backups is not part of being a Digital Hub ;-)

Michael

 

[kishba]

one of the advertised features of 10.1 is the ability to burn dvdrs from the desktop... they even said it "has never been done before"

i assume that meant os 9's burner can't do it yet. toast probably will work though.

 

[mstur]

Originally posted by kishba
one of the advertised features of 10.1 is the ability to burn dvdrs from the desktop... they even said it "has never been done before"

i assume that meant os 9's burner can't do it yet. toast probably will work though.

Great news !

Unfortunately I will have to stick with OS 9 for some time, since my client/server database (Helix RADE) is far from being carbonized...

Thus, I ordered Toast 5.0 Titanium today