External DVD Drive Not Recognized

Just got a Toshiba portable supermulti DVD/CD drive. My internal drive is fried and figured it would be cheaper to get an external until I can get a new computer. Except, when I plug it into either of my USB ports, the drive lights up and makes noise for about 10 secs, then stops and it does not register on my computer. The drive shows up on the System Profiler, but nowhere else is it recognized. When I try to open Disk Utility, it just says 'Gathering Disk Info' and just pinwheels and is Not Responding until I Force Quit. Any thoughts as to what the issue is? My computer recognizes my external hard drive, iPod and anything else I plug into it and the DVD drive was recognized no-problem by my Dad's new Macook Pro and by my brother's PC. I should say I have the 2007 model Pro. Thanks!

Is the DVD drive externally powered? I.e. does it have a power supply?
For exmple my LG external DVD won't work with a single USB on my Macbook Pro - it requires another usb cable that has a power plug on the end. So both USB ports are used.
It kinda works without power, but it's unreliable, it could be you're having a similar issue?

Similar Messages

External DVD drive not recognized with Leopard install

I just installed Leopard and my external firewire DVD drive (LG; GSA-5120D) is not recognized.
I used patchburn for Tiger to recognize it but there is not Leopard version. any ideas? thx

answered!
I used Patchburn with Tiger. After I removed the Patchburn generated drivers from Library/DiscRecording/DeviceProfiles and restarted, it now works fine.

My dvd drive not recognized in device manager,getting the yellow explanation mark.

my dvd drive not recognized in device manager,getting the yellow explanation mark. Tried uninstallingdevice drive and scanning for new hardware. scanned for updates, etc. I getting no results. The laptop is a Pavilion DV5. Thanks

Hi,
It could be that the drive has a Hardware issue, but try the following.
From the Start Menu, open All Programs, open Accessories, right click the Command Prompt and select 'Run as Administrator'. In to the prompt type the following command and hit enter.
sfc /scannow ( note that there is a space between sfc and the / )
Let the process complete, then type exit and hit enter.
Next, open Device Manager, right click the DVD drive and select Uninstall. When this has completed, restart the notebook and let Windows rediscover the device and check.
Regards,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

HT5639 after The Boot Camp for Windows 8? DVD Drive Not Recognized or Reading CD/DVD

after i made The Boot Camp Setup for running Microsoft Windows 8? DVD Drive Not Recognized or Reading CD/DVD

thanks for the response
1. Yeah I thought that's a mandatory thing because i need to be able to control the brightness with my keyboard, updated graphics card, boot camp control panel, etc
2. No there's no enable for this because Windows 8 recognizes it as a "disconnected device" and asks me to reconnect the dvd drive to the machine (which it obviously already is).
3. Ive tried those before, also even editing the registry but it didnt work.
It's weird because it never happened before on Snow Leopard » Lion bootcamp driver updates. Just in Mountain Lion

CD/DVD drive not recognized on my HP laptop

Hi all, Sorry to post yet another thread on the issue but I've tried just about everything that I've read up on I think. I have a HP Pavilion DV6809wm, running Vista 32 bit. I go into Device Manager and there is no Optical drive listed. I have removed the drive itself, rebooted and reinserted the drive and to no avail. I looked for lower and upper filters in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} but did not have any to delete. I also tried running Microsoft Fix-it on my computer and all it could tell me was there was no drive found. I searched for drivers for my optical drive (HP AD-7560A) but could not install them because there is no drive. I am up to date on my Windows updates and even uninstalled all of my Sims 3 packs because I thought an update to that was causing a conflict or something. I found and deleted a SecuRom (?) folder in my registry that someone posted should be deleted that games sometimes install to prevent burning or something, I can't remember. Still no optical drive. I'm sure it's a software issue because sometimes (rarely) it does work briefly but then goes unresponsive. I found that when I manually remove the drive and insert it, it tends to at least open and close but is still not listed in device manager. I have thought about buying a new drive but am not sure if that will even fix the issue. Please, any insight would be appreciated at this point!

im having the same problem with a computer i was given to fix. i still cannot get it to function.. it is completely unresponsive when windows is loaded.. doesnt even eject as if there wasnt any power to the drive.. when i restart the computer i do get power to the drive while bios is loading and i am able to open the tray with the eject button but as soon as the windows logo appears it becomes completely dead as if there is no power.. i have booted to windows without the drive inserted and then insert the drive and i am able to get the drive to eject via the eject button but it does not read any discs..
i have tried booting to the OS disc but when i get to the boot menu the only option available is the internal HD.. all settings are correct in bios to boot to the internal drive but never gives me that option..
I know the dvd drive functions as i tried it in another laptop and it works fine..
I would like some insight on this as well.. im just starting to believe there is something wrong with it internally on the motherboard or somehing..
I have also tried booting to an external dvd drive and no luck there either
I have also updated the bios hoping that would solve the problem but that did not help either.. i have tried the registry trick as well and no luck.. even besides that the drive should boot from bios regardless if something is screwy in the os

DVD Drive not recognized in BIOS on dv9720us and dv9723cl

I have 2 dv9700 series laptops. Neither of them will recognize the DVD drive in BIOS or in Windows. They both failed over time. It was not an immediate thing. I have replaced both the drives, and both of the sata "extender" that goes between the motherboard and dvd drive. Still neither of them see any DVD drives. The sata hard drives (and even the secondary hard drives) all function perfectly. Both machines have been upgraded to the newest BIOS (vF.34) and both machines are running Windows Vista 32 (Ubuntu Linux 12.04 was booted from a flash drive and it too does not see the DVD drives). An external DVD drive connected via USB works fine, but this is not an acceptable solution as that kinda' takes away from the whole "portability" of the notebook.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Oh, one other thing, all (4 now) drives open and close perfectly and even do a seek upon bootup, but still no recogniztion from BIOS.

An update for anyone interested ...
This is just for the dv9720us, I haven't had a chance to work on the dv9723cl yet.
The solder points on the motherboard where the SATA extender card connects for the DVD drive looked like they were "cold" and not really flush on the motheroard. So, after some fine tip soldering to fix those "cold" joints, the DVD drive works perfectly!
Just one more imperfection in this line of laptops.

External DVD Drive not working with osx 10.8.5

Hi, I'm having issues with my MacBook Pro 15" 9,1 working with an external DVD drive. I am running OSX 10.8.5 and have been troubleshooting this issue for a few weeks. The optical drive itself is the original drive that came with the computer, but I have put it in an external enclosure to free up space inside the body of the MacBook Pro. The drive seems to function fine with CDs (playing and ripping - haven't tried burning yet) but is extremely inconsistent/barely functional with DVD playback. Only one DVD in my collection properly works - others bring up error messages in multiple programs (VLC, Wondershare, the native DVD application, etc.) and another continuously loops back to the main menu each time "Play Feature" is selected. These are a variety of DVDs that range from obscure to commercial and old to new (the oldest and most obscure is the only one that works). After deciding that it is not the programs, I replaced the enclosure. I still had the same exact issues. I reset PRAM - no solution there. I created a new user on my computer, installed the same media players and had the same luck. I then used the same external drive on my old MacBook Pro 15" (5,4 running OSX 10.6.8) to see if it would work there. It worked perfectly (with the native DVD application). What is going on here and how can I get my new computer to recognize the external DVDs reliably and consistently?

older superdrives were Hitachi mfg, new ones are Panasonic. Since yours is new and panasonic, indications are it wont work thru the enclosure on your NEW macbook, rather as you state on your older Mac.
until you said it worked fine on the old machine, the logical conclusion is a dirty lens on the laser since it reads CDs fine but most DVD not, since the track is much smaller.
Considering a new superdrive is only $48 on ebay ,or $78 for a new superdrive, your frustration might be too much, and just grab a new superdrive.
Your detailed information indicates a firmware incompatibility of the panasonic superdrive thru an enclosure
This is the new superdrive, made by panasonic as you have in your enclosure:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/221280580133?lpid=82
of course thats a lot of trouble buying that AND an enclosure, easier still is just getting a Mac superdrive inside its working enclosure designed for use as such:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD564ZM/A/apple-usb-superdrive

External hard drive not recognized by OS

External FW HD not recognized by Disk Utility and "not available" to Time Machine. Had worked fine until last attempt to B.U. Core Duo, OS10.8.4. Suggestions to make this drive available again?

If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
Try a different cable.
If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
Boot into Recovery and launch Disk Utility. Is the drive recognized?
Start up in Safe Mode and test.
Reset the NVRAM.
Reset the System Management Controller.
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

External DVD drive not working with Lombard G3 333

I have an external DVD drive that worked when I had 10.4, but had to reformat HD and now only have 10.3.9, and now the DVD drive does not work with DVDs, it will work with CDs and CDR media, but not with DVD media. My Lombard did not come with DVD originally and I am using a PC Card (Macintosh PowerBook DVD-Video PC Card For PowerBook G3 Series) and it worked before with 10.4, but not with 10.3, any ideas? Also have tried with 9.x, no go either. Any help would be appreciated.
Also, would it be difficult to add a DVD logic board to my Lombard?
Joey

xamdu,
I am reading and replying to this post after first replying to your other post, so a few of my previous comments are redundant.
Regarding the FireWire(?) USB 2.0(?) DVD drive: It is possible Tiger supported your DVD drive but Panther does not. I would give PatchBurn for Panther a try:
http://patchburn.de/download.html
If the above is unsuccessful, take a look at this workaround:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040330171655882
You can swap logic boards but it does require a lot of disassembly.
Since no version of OSX supports Apple DVD Player, I am assuming you have a third-party player like VLC installed to watch movies. If this is the case, the DVD Decoder PC card is not necessary. If booted to 9.x, you of course will need the decoder PC card but I did not know 9.x's Apple DVD Player supported external drives.

Some data DVD's and External Hard Drives not recognized by Leopard only.

1] Some data DVDs that were burned under Tiger do not show up in Leopard. Only a dialog box asking what I want to do with the blank DVD comes up when I insert the disk. On my Tiger computer, the disk shows up perfectly fine. It is a DVD+R being used on a MBP 2ghz... and was burned on that very machine in Tiger and would load fine in Tiger. Now nothing on the same computer in Leopard. I'm going to reburn the disk on my Mac Mini on a DVD-R, but still wanted to know any ideas or input as to why it won't recognize the disk.
2] I also have an external USB2.0 HD. I formatted the disk using my G4 Mac Mini (which has Tiger) and it is not recognized on my MBP. In Disk Utility I try to reformat the drive, but it says that it cannot do so because the "resource is busy". I plug the drive back into the mac mini and it works perfectly fine. Why would this be and how do I correct it?
Full updates on both OS's. No other problems with either computer that I know of.

Unfortunately, commercial DVDs that you have bought 99.9% of the time will be copy protected and Apple's forum terms prohibit discussion of circumventing the copy protection. In various places circumventing digital copy protection is potentially illegal even if you own and intend to keep the DVD. Hence Apple do not wish DVD rippers etc discussed here.
Another problem is that AppleTv cannot play back DVDs copied to an external drive as it does not understand the format. So even if you can 'copy' your DVDs you then need to convert to h264 format to play on AppleTV.
Video formats for AppleTv are limited. They also do not support DVD like menu structures (thogh AppleTV 1 did with itunes Extras movies).
If you have unprotected video you wish to convert eg home video on DVD, then something like Handbrake or MPEGStreamclip with Apple's MPEG2 component might do the job. These programs are not DVD rippers but can process unprotected MPEG2 video.
AC

HP external USB DVD Drive not recognized by computer.

Have HP Mini-210 and HP external USB DVD Drive. When attached, the DVD drive lights and spins but computor will not recognize it. When checking Device Manager, it says no driver for DVD drive.. I try to reinstall the driver, and then it says I have the best one already. Device Manager continues to indicate that this drive has a problem. Tried to download a driver from HP support and it was not available on line.
Copied install disk that came with drive thru dropbox cloud to move it onto the computor. Was able to install the programs but still have no driver and unable to use DVD drive.

Try this wayne
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929461/en-us

New Pioneer DVD drive not recognized in profiler

I have used these forums many times to solve my problems so a big thanks to everyone who contributes. I've never had to actually ask a specific questions until now so here goes....
I have an e-mac running 10.3.9. My superdrive started to get flakey (not recognizing some DVD's, spitting them out, etc.). I followed all the advice here but no luck so I finally replaced the original drive with a Pioneer DVR-118. My problems still exist and the system profiler is telling me I have a Pioneer DVR-106. Did I do something wrong on the install? Shouldn't the profiler recognize the new drive?
A big thank you to anyone who can help me through this.

Since your computer's Apple Hardware Test is on a disc and the built-in optical
drive won't work, you may have to see if an external optical drive capable of
being used as a boot, is available. This of course would be a FireWire combo
type drive that can read & write DVD & CD media and boot Macs.
You may have to see if you can archive anything worth saving from that eMac
and put it on media via another computer; if the eMac can be booted into
Target Disk Mode where it is seen by another computer as a FireWire drive.
In fact, you could see (in a reverse scenario, perhaps?) if another computer's
optical drive could be used by your eMac, if a second healthy computer is
available & then boot it into FireWire Target Disk Mode to see if you can use
the optical drive in there as though it were a peripheral. - This may not work.
I've not had to really use FireWire Target Disk Mode, but do have cables,
and an externally enclosed LaCie FW HDD which is partitioned for clones.
There are times where a FireWire externally enclosed superdrive is handy.
There may be some damage on the logic board or some circuit that does the
controlling of ATA devices on one of the buses in the computer. That would
be a possible cause of the issue. If the identity of this drive can be changed
by the user before it is installed, be sure that is set correctly for use in eMacs.
{The three eMacs I've owned, had issues early on and I got rid of them in mere
days of first purchase; at considerable distance and effort by me. Then I got
an iMac which was an unholy terror to debug after an 'authorized service' ctr
did their best to kill logic boards and sell me defective store-brand RAM they
were authorized to install in a place I was not. ThreeThousand Miles and Six
Months later, I finally got my iMac back, repaired. Only because Apple told
them to read my test notes - & just install the parts I said it originally needed.}
Do you have a second Mac nearby (presuming yes, and using it online) which
may be used to attempta further diagnostic or testing of the eMac?
Not sure if an Apple Hardware Test would be sufficient to tell the issues in
your computer; if you have a way to make use of it via external FW. Hope-
fully someone with more extensive eMac and drive experience will advise.
Good luck & happy computing!

CD/DVD drive not recognized in hp pavilion dv6500

I have a problem with my CD/DVD drive.
My hp pavilion dv6500 laptop is not recognize the drive, dos not show up in the device manager, I right click on the IDE adapters to scan for changes, I hold down the F9 to see the start up order of the drives it’s OK accordingly to factory settings and I would like to ask some one help or advice what to do. My cd/dvd drive was working when I installed the new operating system from the CD on the new WD SATA hard drive. I have not portioned the new HD during installation of the OS because I need all the space on the HD. When I checked the drive letters I only have seen a C drive. Missing the call letter for the CD/DVD drive ‘example E’ for the cd/dvd drive.
The commuter is running great now, but I using an external HP CD drive to install all my software. I using the Driver Detective software to trying to detect the cd/dvd drive, but it’s useless. I do hear the drive when I put in a CD or DVD it is connected to the internal power source, but not been seen or recognized. If any one can help I would be very grateful. [text removed for privacy]

Hi,
You could try the automated fixit from Microsoft on the link below.
Windows 7
Vista
If the above fix hasn't worked, try the following. From the Start Menu, open the Control Panel and click on Device Manager. Click to open the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. Right click on the first channel and select uninstall. Do not delete drivers if asked. When uninstalled repeat the process for each channel. Also if an ATA controller is listed, right click and uninstall this. Again, do not delete drivers if asked.
Next click to open DVD/CD-ROM Drives. If your optical drive appears here, right click and select uninstall. Do not delete drivers if asked.
Restart your PC and let Windows re-install these devices. Give it a minute or two, then see if the drive is working.
Let me know how it goes.
Best wishes,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

DVD drive not recognized after Security update

Hello -
Well, for whatever reason I decided to apply some Apple software updates today. I repaired permissions, did a back up to an external Firewire drive with SuperDuper and downloaded several packages - iDVD 6.0.2, iMovie 6.0.2, Quicktime 7.1, iPhoto 6.0.3, iWeb 1.1, and Security Update 2006-003. I installed the Security Update and rebooted. I had read about an issue with DVDs, so promptly inserted a DVD-R disc of mine with a movie on it (not a commercial DVD, footage I had shot on my own). It was not recognized. I restarted with the mouse button held, no luck. I repaired permissions, no change.
I restarted from the backup on the external drive and cloned the backup over to my Powerbook. The problem did not go away, there the DVD sits, unrecognized. Tried to see if DVD player would see the DVD, got a message "There was an initialization error. A valid DVD drive could not be found [-70012]" disc burning in System profiler says no burning device was found. Tried to re-install DVD player via 4.6.1 update, got a message "Compatible DVD hardware was not detected, installation will not proceed".
Where to next? I haven't booted into open firmware to try to eject the disk that way, but one post on the discussions here somewhere had no luck. I'd really rather not erase and re-install and migrate from my back-up, but if that is all that's left, ok. Thanks for your help.
BTW, 10.4.6 ona 1.5 GHz Al PowerBook with 2GB RAM, not original RAM but Samsung from OWC. Thanks again.

Well, one thing I had not tried was to reset PRAM//NVRAM. I combined that step with shutting down, unplugging the power cord and letting it sit for 15 minutes. Reconnected power, restarted while holding cmd-option-P-R through the second start-up chime, and viola, my DVD appears on the desktop, the drive is listing in the system profiler, problem gone. Thanks all for the rapid responses.
Darth

External hard drive not recognized after time machine locked up

I was backing up to an external hard drive (300GB Western Digital) and time machine locked up. I had to shut down the computer and restart. Now the external hard drive does not show up on the desktop?
I can see it in disk utility but I am not able to mount or unmount the disk, I keep getting an error that the disk is in use. I tried to erase/reformat the disk and no luck.
Any suggestions?
Thanks for the help

KTM450rider wrote:
Do I need to boot from the install DVD?
this is often the easiest and eliminates any "busy drive" problems. what's wrong with booting from the install DVD? takes a couple of minutes.
My main hard drive is OK... the drive that I am having problems with is an external hard drive that I was using to back up my lap top. I just want to get the external drive reformatted, but disk utility will not erase it. I get an error that disk utility shut down, "please check the drive and make sure that the drive is not in use or programs are still running"
Is their a way to do a hard or forced reformatting of an external hard drive, I don't care about the information on the drive
I also tried disk warrior to recover the info on the disk and all it does is crash my mac pro????
Thanks again for the help

External DVD Drive Not Recognized

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