Combo Drive reading Dual Layer / booting from external DVD USB

I am helping a friend with an iMac G5. He has the combo drive which is not able to read the dual layer Leopard DVD. I have looked to see if there is a firmware update for the drive however no luck. I am able to put an external usb DVD and it reads the disk however I was not able to boot from the disk using keyboard commands I tried AppleOption+ShiftDelete, C, and also tried Option but no luck.
I have been reading that booting from usb external drive is a no no on older G5 iMac's unless you are using fire wire. If any one can give me some help with getting the USB drive to boot, or figuring out why the combo drive spits out the DVD every time I would appreciate it. I am also willing to make a bootable usb leopard thumb drive, but I don't want to waste my time if it's not going to boot from USB.
Thanks,
jtadmin

Do you happen to have a more recent Mac that can read the Leopard installation DVD?
If so, you may be able to start up your Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode,
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
and let the iMac G5 use your Mac's optical drive to boot from the Leopard DVD.
Also, it is true that PowerPC Macs can generally only boot from external drives that are FireWire.

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Can 2005 iBook G4 1.33Ghz combo drive read dual layer DVDs?

Hi. Can my 2005 iBook G4 1.33Ghz 1.5G ram OS X 10.4.11 with combo drive read double layer or dual layer DVDs? I couldn't find any definite info anywhere. Thanks a lot!!!
Mack

Welcome to Apple Discussions, humain.
I have been burning DL DVDs from another Mac for quite some time now. Never had any problems with the DVDs being unreadable on my PowerBooks except when there was a bad batch of discs, which then meant only the Mac that burned the disc could read it.
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Can my Combo-drive read Dual-Layer DVDs?

I have a Combo drive in a PBG4 12" 1.33GHz with a combo drive. Can I read DL DVDs burned from one of the new Macs? I couldn't find any litterature on this.
Thank you!
PowerBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1.33GHz 768MB RAM Combo-drive

Welcome to Apple Discussions, humain.
I have been burning DL DVDs from another Mac for quite some time now. Never had any problems with the DVDs being unreadable on my PowerBooks except when there was a bad batch of discs, which then meant only the Mac that burned the disc could read it.
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Ibook g3 M2453 boot from external DVD drive

Hi, I'm Simon from Germany.
I have an iBook M2453 Mac OS X and a lot of dvds.
But the iBook has no DVD drive. So I bought an external DVD drive. But no matter what I do during boot (press the C key or alt)
I can not boot from external DVD drive.
Please help me
Thank you.
Simon.
PS: I have translated the text using Google translate

Hi Simon,
the iBook is able to boot from USB, but this is not expected behaviour and not supported by Apple.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20554
There are some external enclosures that do the trick.
But only when you press ALT after Power on. (Select a startup volume via the Startup Manager)
External enclosures with Prolific PL-3507 chipset (Firewire/USB Combo)
You will find them on Ebay Germany
I have a Delock IDE>USB 2.0 enclosure for 2,5" HDs
http://www.delock.com/produkte/gruppen/Geh%C3%A4use/Delock_25_external_enclosure _USB20_42365.html?setLanguage=EN
that works also.
Hallo Simon,
das läuft nur mit einigen wenigen externen Gehäusen. Such auf Ebay nach "PL-3507"
und nimm eins mit Firewire und USB Anschlüssen.
Ein Festplattengehäuse von Delock für 2,5" Festplatten ging auch ( Link oben)
Ein Boot ist nur möglich wenn du die ALT Taste nach dem Einschalten drückst und dann über den Startup manager dein Boot volume auswählst.

Macbook pro cant boot from external dvd device please help !!!!

hello everyone please help me i have macbook pro 2011 core i5 version
i just installed 2.5 ssd as second hdd
i cant boot from external dvd device to install any os the external dvd keeps on spining and mac is just thinking it doesnt show press any key to install
it shows the device when a boot into mac parition
i am trying to install windows on origianl 500 gb hdd and linux on ssd
but not luck
the external dvd drive works i pluged into my pc and it works
please help thansk in advance
200 gb mac
300 gb windows
120 ssd linux

I do not know about Disk Warrior but if you have a compatible OSX on an external HDD you certainly can boot the MBP. Use startup manager:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht1310
Ciao.

All users GONE except for "Other"...and CANNOT boot from External DVD drive

I booted the iMac (Intel...the last one with the White Bezel) tonight, and all of my users were GONE except for "Other." The internal Superdrive has had a disc jammed in it for months, so instead I have an OWC external USB/FW400/FW800 DVD drive. Snow Leaopard.
I need to boot from the SL install disc, but that must go into the external drive...which, as it's been since I upgraded to SL, the Mac sometimes sees and sometimes doesn't. Right now it can't see it. Which leaves me a big pile of crap, doesn't it?
So, what to do? I can't boot the internal drive because it's jammed with a DVD (or I spend $300 to replace what should be a $20 optical drive in it), I can't boot the external DVD drive because the iMac w/Snow Lepeord can't see it, and, meanwhile, all of my photos, etc., are on my Time Machine backup drive...which, as long as I can't do any of the above, just sits there...useless.
Can you tell I'm a bit frustrated with this?
I've reset the PRAM. I've rebooted. I've held down all sorts of combinations of keys. I've tried every single interface type on the external drive and the same thing - the drive can't be seen by the computer.
Has the internal hard drive failed? Nope. I'm tying this using the Firefox browser that's running on my Windows XP installation via Boot Camp on the internal hard drive.

Thanks, but no luck so far.
I have an old iMac G3 downstairs, and I connected it to the machine via Firewire. I could see the disk on the 24" iMac, its folders, etc. I wanted to see if I could install OS X via Target Disk Mode from the old machine to the new one, but it's a PowerPC machine and you can't do that. Maybe you can't do that from ANY iMac...I'm not that experienced.
Now the iMac isn't booting at all to Windows via Boot Camp - it's been booting for 45 minutes now with the "WinXP" logo, but nothing. I'm about to throw it in the car and haul it over to my parents, who have both a Powerbook and a 27" iMac. Maybe it'll work there. Who knows.
Other ideas...replace the internal hard drive (cheap)...if that doesn't work, I'll just sell the thing. I'm not going to sink $300 into the thing when I can get a new machine for around $600-$700. I may go to a Windows7 machine on the desktop and a Powerbook...maybe even an iPad.
I really want to love this iMac. It's my first (well, I did have the G3, but that was just to play with) Mac. It's given me a ton of problems since I bought it new. It's always been a "stock" machine - nothing weird done to it. I was hit with an iMovie update once, and that broke iMovie. Even the new iLife 2009 didn't fix it. Then, the internal optical disk drive failed. I couldn't believe that Apple used a proprietary optical drive rather than a stock Pioneer model. Price for the drive alone? $200.
I installed Snow Leopard 2 months ago, and that completely broke my ability to use external optical drives. Sometimes they work...most times they don't. This is an ongoing problem that many people are having (check the forums)...but no fix. Where does that leave me? With a useless computer.
So, I've boiled it down to this: I love the Mac software. I hate the hardware. Sure, it's pretty, but if something goes wrong, get ready to pay. I hate that Apple knows about problems, yet does nothing to address them, like the problem with external optical drives and Snow Leopard.
I bought the Mac because I was sick of Microsoft not being able to simply produce an OS full of security holes. Often times I read people bashing supposed "driver ****" with Windows, but look at what users of Windows machine are demanding of Microsoft - "please make my software compatible with the trillions of combinations of hardware that can run the os...all the way back to stuff that was created in the mid 1990s." Meanwhile, from my experience, Apple can't get their software to work with their own proprietary, supposedly vertically-controlled hardware.
Windows7 is a not bad OS. It's got it's faults, of course. But, if my optical drive failed in a Windows box, I'd have it replaced in 10 minutes...with a bluray drive...that can write...for under $100.
I use my computer for pictures, etc. In fact, we were ready to send off to iPhoto for our yearly photo books. That's not going to happen, as the photos are forever trapped on my Time Machine backup drive (lesson learned: dump photos to a generic format...fat32 works...just in case you decide to switch from Mac to Win7). iLife is great. MS Office is great, too, on the Mac. I love the little things the Mac does right.
After years of screwing around with my Windows box, I wanted a computer that acted like a consumer electronic device. That's not what I've gotten.
Ugh, so now do I buy a Mac Mini for $700, a new iMac for $1,400, or a Macbook Pro and a mac mini?
...or...do I continue to work within this silly Ubuntu Linux world?
Whatever the answer, I wish I didn't have to ask the question now.

HP Envy 15 Won't boot from external dvd rom

Hi All,
My HP Envy is brand new (Envy 15 j151sa). The external DVD drive is brand new (HP dvd600). My model of the Envy does not have an internal CD/DVD drive
I want to boot from a live DVD.
I've read other posts and answers for similar queries and followed the suggestion.
On boot press F10 (BIOS setup) and the Boot Options settings are as follows...
a) Secure boot - disabled
b) Legacy boot - enabled.
c) Changed the legacy boot order to have the USB dvd rom as first in the list.
Save the setting.
Restart the PC.
On boot press F9
Displays the availabe list of devices (3) to boot from as
OS Boot Manager
Boot from EFI file
Notebook harddrive
There is no option to select the external DVD rom drive.
I have upgraded the BIOS to the latest HP recommended version.
I don't know what else to try.
I could really use some help now.
Thanks
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Your external DVD drive is operatying as it should.
The best place to find an answer on how to make the live CD is at the Debian forum. The disk you made apparentlydoes not have an MBR bootsector or a recognized EFI partition. Either of those is what is needed for the disk to be bootable and your notebook BIOS must be configured accordance with the choice of format type.
Personally I have always preferred using a utility like UNetbootln to make multiple "live" bootable Linux versions.
I don't bother with the hassle of DVD or CD media any more.
If you have a spare 32 or 64GB usb flashdrive, then you can put an incredible number of versions of Linux and troubleshooting utilities on it.
The economy of scale with usb flashdrive has gotten to the point where a 16 GB usb flashdrive is less expensive that DVD recordable media. Check out the prices at NewEgg.
Get your preferred version of Debian AMD64 live iso from here.
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

Problem: installed new hard drive but can´t boot from leopard dvd

So I just installed a new hard drive in my ibook G4. At first I started up the computer using the leopard DVD I had purchased. Got to Disk Utility and after a few seconds in the spin wheel came up and froze. So, I shut the computer down and when I tried to boot it again from the DVD I wouldn´t even reach the apple screen. Tried it a few times unsuccessfully.
As an alternative I just tried booting the comptuer using the original CD and it did read it.
I am currently at the installer page but I am concern about installing the old CD as I really would like to run the leopard dvd 10.5.
Is it that my ibook g4 can´t be booted from leopard dvd?
Please advise. thanks!!

OK, so I decided to leave my computer resting all night and give it a new try this morning.
This morning I was able to boot from the Leopard DVD, so I don´t really think it is a problem with my superdrive. Started to format at 32 minutes to complete. Then towards the 10th minute the spinning wheel appeared, I heard the fan running, then it stopped and then I heard the superdrive making some reading noises. Then all noises stopped and now the spinning wheel continues..not sure what to do now.
In the meantime, I wanted to share also another problem that I´ve been having for quite some time which I don´t know if it is related to my current problem. It is with the computer power:
- I´ve been experiecing load surges that take my computer from 100% to 1 or 0% and then goes to sleep or shuts down. The same thing happens when I am charging the computer.. it starts charging and showing 2 or 3% charge and then jacks up to 100% in minutes.
- My computer also makes like a slight humming noise sometimes when the ring around the power cable is in orange color, so I move it around until it stops. When I do that sometimes it goes from orange to green eventhough it is not fully charged. There has been times that under green it appears to be charging (battery charging icon on desktop shows up), and other sometimes like right now when it is in green color and the battery icon on the desktop says ´99%´. Weird enough, once I get the cable in a certain position it enables the battery to charge, if I keep it without moving it, the load surges disappear (at least for some days).
Should I try resetting the PMU? I´ve not done it because I don´t know what consequences it may have.
NOTE: When I bought the computer I never calibrated my battery because I was (and still are) clueless when comes to computer technicalities. I tried using a different power adapter and get the sample problem.
Below is the information I get from coconut battery:
My battery is in its 256 load-cycle. current battery capacity 58512mAh (original battery capacity: 4400 mAh).
The last system profiler I was able to pull shows:
Battery Information:
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 58320
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 58512
Health Information:
Cycle count: 256
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 16250
System Power Settings:
AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
Dynamic Power Step: Yes
Reduce Processor Speed: No
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On LAN: Yes
Wake On Modem Ring: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5
Dynamic Power Step: No
Reduce Processor Speed: Yes
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On Modem Ring: No
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Reduce Brightness: Yes
Hardware Configuration:
Clamshell Closed: No
UPS Installed: No
AC Charger Information:
AC Charger (Watts): 26
Connected: Yes
Charging: No
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks a bunch!!!

Problem booting from external DVD drive on Lenovo S10e

Hi,
I recently purchased a new Lenovo S10e ideapad, a few weeks prior to that I purchased an external DVD rewriter drive manufactured by LG, the drive works perfectly on every computer I try with the exception of the Lenovo ideapad S10e.
The thing is that the drive is being recognized and installed by the Windows XP Home Edition the S10e came with but when I try to boot a bootable CD using then drive on the S10e ideapad I almost alwasy fail to do so.
I set the S10e BIOS to have the USB CDROM as first boot device, in addition I used the F12 key to use the boot menu to choose the boot device, in 9 out 0f 10 atempts my external drive will not show in the boot menu and when choosing the enter setup option I see that the BIOS do not list it as the USB CDROM, instead it says "USB CDROM:" rather than have the drive name after it.
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The problem seems very strange to me as the drive works under the windows operating system and do not have any problem whatsoever on other computers, I have tested the external drive on my PC, another Mini Laptop from LG and a GIGABYTE Laptop (Normal one), all of which had no problems recognizing the external drive and booting from it.
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I've had a similar issue with X61 and the external DVD drive from Lenovo.
In my case, it was the power issue. On the back of the drive, there is a small table says that the drive needs a 3.0A 5V power input. One USB 2.0 port can only provide 0.5A. I don't know if the drive has any special, low power mode, but I suspect that even if it has, 0.5A is still not enough to fully power it. I've checked the current with the multimeter, and at peak times, the drive draws 550mA. Even then, it makes a stuttering sound for a few seconds, before finally spinning the DVD disk. I've also noticed that the DVD works most of the times when it's connected to the left USB port. That may be because of how the laptop's internal power circuicity is laid out (+separate USB host controller for each 'side' of the laptop). Another thing that seems to help is to disable all 5V driven devices that the laptop uses: the wifi card, bluetooth, any additional devices connected to the USB bus / to the ethernet port / SD card port (I'm not actually sure which of the devices are 5V and which are 3.3V, but the best option is to disable all of them), maybe even remove the battery (if it's charging). Finally, the DVD drive works better if the laptop was turned on and runnig for some time, rather than it being turned on "a minute before". Also, in the BIOS, there is a setting that changes the speed of the DVD drive, but switching it to "low" didn't seem to affect the external drive (at least not before Windows boots up).

External Drive with Time Machine, booting from external drive with utilitie

I'm using Time Machine now with
a LaCie 1TB external hard drive.
Everything works fine.
But, I've been wondering:
Can I place a program like TechTool
on the external drive (that Time Machine uses)
and boot from that external drive.
I would like to be able to do that,
because diagnostics and repair programs
only works properly and fully when they run from
external drives. Anything on the internal drive can be repaired
and examine. Impossible to do if Techtool is on the same
drive that's been examined.
Any thoughts as to what I should do?
Thanks
iMac, Leopard, Time Machine, Lacie Quadra 1TB drive.
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?

pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?
As V.K. says, you can't boot from TM backups.
But you can restore your entire system from any one of them, per the procedure in #14 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
You can also selectively restore from them, while running normally. See #15 in the FAQ Tip.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
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Restore Disc Will Not Boot From External DVD Drive

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I'm trying to get my Macbook Pro to boot from the restore disc that came with it so I can try setup again, but it won't work. If I hold C during the boot, I get a flashing folder with a question mark over it. If I hold option, I get a cursor, but just a blank, gray screen. In both instances, the external DVD drive is active and reading the disc, but I'm not getting any results on the screen. I've also reset PRAM.
If I can just get my computer to boot from the disc, I should be able to get back on track. Thanks.

When I press option during boot, nothing happens. Just a gray screen and cursor, like I described above. I haven't been able to test the external drive yet on another mac to see if it is bootable because I can't find the other computer's boot disc at the moment, but I'll try later with something else.
I have been able to access the drive through Target Disk mode successfully though. Is there something in particular I should do with the files? The folders are:
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dev
etc
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OSInstall.mpkg.998YblbM
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tmp
Users
var
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Sun v40z wont boot from external DVD/RW drive

Hello folks, I am banging my head on the wall with a Sun v40z that will not boot from an external dvd drive. I want to install Win2k3 Server on it. Any ideas.

The v40z is an x86 platform,and thus has a BIOS controlling the boot order and boot devices. You'll have to attach a VGA display and keyboard, power on the system, then hit F2 or F10 to enter Setup (it should say what magic key it is at startup time, just after the SUN logo splash screen comes up).
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Good luck!

Booting from external dvd drive

hi all,
my optical drive in the 17" mbpro (1st gen) has finally packed up and it doesn't make financial sense to replace it when the external lacie units are half the price. Before i make the plunge, does anyone know of any limitations, if any, of using the external drive as the boot device for installs?
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hey guys,
my cd drive is fried too and i am using an external USB cd/dvd drive instead.
But now i just bought leopard and to install it i need to set the mac to boot from the drive.
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Thanks

Booting From External DVD Drive Thru USB to install OS Tiger DVD

Hi,
I would like to reformat my iBook G4 from Panther to Tiger. I dont have DVD drive internally. I've got the DVD ROM of Tiger and external USB DVD Drive. Tell me the possible ways to do the installation beside Firewire connection.
Please help me.

Hi Nik,
AFAIK you cannot boot from USB devices. You could give it try by inserting the Tiger DVD into the external drive and rebooting your Mac while holding the "alt" key. If your DVD drive was bootable then -after a while- the DVD should come up as an option to boot from. But this is not likely to happen.
The best way to get Tiger on your iBook - unless you have anothet Mac with a DVD drive lying around - is to get the Media Exchange form from this website and to exchange your DVD for a set of CDs (minus a handling fee).
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The Air cannot boot from external dvd-drive

Hi!
I am using my rev.2 air, 1.86 Mhz prosessor, 120 GB HDD, leopard 10.5.7 with a Samsung writemaster external dvd-writer, but I am having problems booting from it.
When I try to boot (pressing option) I can choose the disc and the applesymbol will appear, but the spinning wheel below does not, and the screen just stay the same until I cut the power.
I have tried to boot both the original OS X-disc and Windows 7 (both through boot camp and normal restart) with the same result.
Any help will be...well, helpfull

Not sure if this will help - but whenever I need to boot from an install disc on my MBA - i turn on the MBA and hold the 'c' key until i hear it loading the disc. that's how I boot off of optical discs... worth a try?

Combo Drive reading Dual Layer / booting from external DVD USB

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