How do I install an amazon external dvd drive to replace a broken internal one in my old macbook?

My old macbook has a broken optical drive inside it. The one that came with it has quit working and the genius at the genius bar said it needed to be replaced. The genius said to get an external one online so I bought the Amazon basics external dvd drive. I can't figure out how to install it and get it to work.

Nothing will show up on the desktop until you put a CD/DVD in it.
Plug it into the FireWire or USB port and turn it on. Put a CD/DVD in it and it should show up on the desktop.

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  • Time machine will not backup to empty external hard drive after replacing Mac's internal hard drive and restoring

    First - I live in a tiny fishing village in Belize, so getting support here is virtually non-existent. There is no one else in my village who even uses a Mac. Recently, my hard drive in my 2012 Macbook Pro 13" went bad (said it suffered a "shock"?) and I was traveling to Cozumel, Mexico, so had it replaced there. We used an external hard drive backup to restore the data to it's last time machine backup (October of 2014). Everything was working fine, until I returned home, added some pictures, and wanted to do a fresh backup. Now, time machine will start the backup, but gets about 113,000 of 181,000 done, and it locks up. I can do nothing - everything freezes, and I have to eventually power down the computer. I even tried deleting the old backup from the external hard drive, erasing it completely, and reformatting the external hard drive using disk utility. Still locking up. It is a 5 GB external hard drive, so space shouldn't be an issue, and it was backed up to the same external hard drive previously with no issues. I'm still running Mavericks, and don't want to try to upgrade to Yosemite until I can be sure I have a backup of my old data and pictures. I am a writer, and use that to make my meager living LOL
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    is there a way that Ieopard can be installed via an external dvd drive... My Imac 15 inch won't read the install dvd and I read somewhere that it's possible... Is there some truth to this? If so can someone give me instructions
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    My emac has frozen. I was installing the software update to system 10.4.6 when the machine crashed (not enough HD space? don't know.)
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    Edward Rosenstein,
    Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
    Had you used patchburn on the external DVD drive?
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  • Install data from external hard drive?

    Hi, we have our old macbook data saved on external hard drive (old laptop had water damage but able to retrieve data). I now have new macbook, how do I install data from external hard drive to new macbook? Is it super easy? I didn't want to set up new laptop until I could understand how to install all our old data. Thanks

    Do you have the appropriate cable to connect the external drive to to new Macbook?
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  • External DVD drive in Mac Pro

    I've installed an older external DVD drive, internal in my Mac Pro.
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    Did you remove the front piece from the drive tray? It should unclip easily. Also, there are two different sets of mounting screws, depending on the brand of drive, to set the correct height, so the tray will open the case door. You may be able to adjust the tray height by loosening the front or rear screws.

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