Internal/external "superdrive" to burn DVDs/Need Mac hardware dictionary!!!

Though I have been a Mac user since I started using computers, I would consider myself a "newbie" as far as using the various packages available on OSX 10.3.9 Panther, specifically iPhoto and idvd as well as issues regarding upgrading and expanding my current computer.
Anyway, my main question is this...I was doing a project in imovie and wanted to burn it to a DVD only to discover a little too late that my computer, in fact, had NO INTERNAL SUPERDRIVE! I just assumed my computer had the capability but found out is was only CD-RW/DVD-ROM.
Well, this lead to a lot of research on my part trying to figure out how to get a superdrive. It seems like the best (easiest?) option is to get an external DVD burner...but I don't know which is the best one, if I would need firewire cables or "USB" (if that is even correct) to hook it up and even if a "superdrive" is the same thing as a hard drive!
Also, I have tried to follow the threads on this site about various apple topics and discussions and am having a tough time deciphering much of the "lingo". Dual Layer Disc? DVD+R vs. DVD-R and what drive and/or media works with what?? ATA? SATA PCI? RAID? RAPTOR? Is there a dictionary for all this?
I really want to learn and finish this slideshow project I have started using iphoto 4.0.3 and imovie 4.0.1 but am at a confusing brick wall. ANY and ALL help is greatly appreciated.
Sorry to post such a long message, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. : (
Power Mac G4 1.25 GHz (Dual) [Mirrored Drive Door] Mac OS X (10.3.9) Current computer drive is dual CD-RW/DVD-ROM and NO SUPERDRIVE!!!

Like the previous poster I'd be tempted to get an internal DVD burner.
It's almost certainly the cheapest solution, as you can just buy the bare drive and aren't paying for an external case, cables, bundled software (which tends to be Windows only) etc, none of which you actually need.
It's almost certainly the most compatible solution as well, in terms of being able to burn CDs and DVDs from the Finder and iApps such as iTunes and iDVD.
You could either replace your existing CD-RW/DVD-ROM or add it as a second drive. Instructions for replacing the optical drive (CD/DVD) can be found here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=26259
Removing the old drive is just a case of undoing a few screws and unplugging two cables. Installation of the new drive is simply the reverse process. The only thing to check is that the jumpers are set correctly on the back of the new drive. This just involves moving a small jumper 'block' to the appropriate pair of pins.
The Pioneer DVR-110D would be a popular choice as it supports both competing formats (DVD-RW and DVD+RW) and also dual layer discs. The only slight complication is that being new on the market, I don't believe it's fully supported by OS X 10.4 yet (although this could change with 10.4.4).
However, if you're using 10.3 (or 10.4) you can use PatchBurn:
http://www.patchburn.de/

Similar Messages

Do I really need to buy an external drive to burn DVDs on my eMac (10.4)?

I have been trying to burn DVDs (using DVD-Rs, not DVD+Rs) on my eMac (OS 10.4) without success. The machine just acts as if nothing has been put in the drive; it whirrs and whirrs, no icon appears, no error message, nothing, until after half an hour or so I have to just eject it. On another forum, I was told that the problem was probably that my eMac can't recognize blank DVD-Rs, let alone burn them, without an external drive that has to be purchased separately. I want to be sure that's really true before buying anything, needless to say!
Another string on this forum suggested looking under "optical drive" under "About This Mac" to find out this kind of thing. I see nothing that specifically says "optical drive," but under Hardware and Disc Burning, it says:
HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4481B:
Firmware Revision: 2.05
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw
Media: No
Is this enough information for someone to please be able to tell me whether I do indeed need to buy an external disc drive before I can burn DVDs?
(And, if so, what kind of drive is recommended?)
Thanks in advance for any help.
Chris Roth
[email protected]

While you can replace the intenal drive, opening up an eMac is not a trivial process and it's far easier to add an external drive. Go with Firewire rather than USB, even if your eMac is USB 2.0; support for Firewire under OS X is better and more stable.You can get a Firewire enclosure for around US$30 to $40 and a bare DVD-RW/CD-RW for about the same; or buy a complete system for around US$130 to $200 depending on features such as third-party burning software (Toast) or built-in label making with special DVD-R or CD-R blanks (LightScribe). OS X 10.3.3 and higher (which of course includes the 10.4 in your profile) includes native support for DVD-R burning, so you don't strictly need third-party software such as Toast, but Toast is more flexible than the built-in burner and allows for packing more data on a disc since Toast has better control over the disc's directory size. LightScribe is an appealing idea, but slow, and the blanks are expensive. When consideringf whether to roll your own, so to speak, with an enclosure and bare drive, don't overlook that you'll need a good-quality Firewire cable; cheap cables can cause a surprising amount of grief. Unless you have a bare DVD-RW drive handy, I persoanlly find the convenience of a commercial drive, with cable and power supply/cord already packaged together, outweighs the savings of assembling a drive yourself. I'm partial to LaCie D2 Firewire drives myself, but there are other models that work fine.

2010 Mac mini Superdrive not burning DVD's

My mac mini is not burning DVD's right. I put in a 500GB harddrive a few months back and the SATA cables are attached correct. I can read DVD's but writing DVD's doesn't work. The process finishes but when after I eject the disc I can see that nothing is burning in the inner most part of the disc. When I put the disc back in the computer thinks the disc hasn't been burned and asks if it shuld be open in finder like a blank disc. I know a cd/dvd should burn from the center and spiral outward as it writes more data but it seems the disc is offset when it writes its first data, leaving the inner most part of the disc blank. Maybe I should reformat the OS and start from scratch to see if that helps. Any other ideas?

Strange these Memorex DVD's worked flawlessly a couple of times then I started getting these srange burns. I think I'm going to blitz this install I'm backing up with time machine now so I'll see what happens. Is there anyway to reapply an EFI update to make sure nothing is corrupt? I did notice what looked like brownish black burns on the logicboard when I opened it up to put the new harddrive in. They were on the long solder traces where they test the logic board by the the logic boards sata connections. I keep the system on 24/7 but don't really play any 3d or do anything that is too processor intense. Another thing is the superdriver seems to favor the left side when a DVD is initially inserted and ejected but moves to the conter when pressed all the way in I can't remember that being normal.

Superdrive stopped burning DVD no longer recognized by computer

I am using an i Book G4. I have been consistently burning DVD's on the superdrive for several days. Today in iDVD it said there was no superdrive on the computer. I can however play DVD's on the drive. Is this a soft ware or hard ware problem? I don't know what else to check. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

I assume what you were asking was what program I was using to burn the DVD. I was using iDVD and that is the program that first told me my machine did not have a burner. I use the disk image to actually burn the DVD. I have found it much more stable than trying to burn from iDVD no matter which of the 3 Mac computers I use. Thanks for you input. I was hoping there was a way to see if there was a software corruption causing the burn DVD to disconnect. I appreciate your interest.

External Drive Reads Burned DVDs

I replaced the original drive with a Pioneer that lasted about 1 year, sent it in for repair and got a sony. It does the same thing as the pioneer, burns but won't read dvds. Tried serveral brands of dvds, no change. It reads commercial dvds and cds cdrs ok. So I took the pioneer when it came back from service and hooked it up to a usb case and it will read the burned dvds.?! I guess you need an external dvd reader......
Steve

Several of us create a disk image, burn a DVD, and move the disk image (.img) to an external HD for future use.
Don't count on any recordable DVD to be good "down the road." Well, maybe Verbatim's Archival Grade DVD.
BTW, If I'm doing movies, I export the edited version back to MiniDV tape. That's the best backup.

Superdrive only burns dvd at 2x

I just bought a 12" powerbook with a superdrive and it says that it's supposed to burn DVD's at 8x. I put in a 16x and it said the max it could do was 2x so then I put in an 8x and it still won't write faster than 2x. Is the drive in the powerbook extremely picky about which types of DVD-R's to use or is there different issue here?

Do you have the option to burn at higher than 2x and it just won't burn successfully? I was burning at 4x (I have a model from last year) before upgrading to Tiger, and when I try to use media from the same spindle after the upgrade, I didn't have an option to try to burn at faster than 2x. Toast seems to burn at faster than 2x, but I like apple's disk burner better and would rather use that. I don't see how the drive could identify the media and lower it's speed based on that. If that's what it's trying to do, I don't really consider it a feature. I'll try to burn at the higher speed, and if it fails, I'll burn slower, or try different media. I don't need the computer to try to prevent me from burning a coaster when the media is as cheap as it is. sigh

STILL can't burn DVDs on Mac OS 10.6.5 after trying everything

Hi there.
Ever since I've updated to 10.6.5, I can't burn DVDs, doesn't matter which brand or what software I use. however, I am able to burn CDs. I went to my local Apple Store and they booted OS 10.6.3 on my computer via firewire and what d'you know ? it burnt a dvd right away. this is clearly an issue with the latest update. I did as they said, reseted my PRAM and even re-installed the latest update (I downloaded the 10.6.5 combo version from Apple Support).
Is anyone experiencing the same ? I know a lot of people had the same issue couple of weeks ago. did anyone successfully overcome it ?
cheers.

This is an older post from the Roxio Community (http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/39824-toast-burns-cd-but-not-dvd-on-mac/); but seems like similar problem - maybe worth a try:
Either something is preventing the data from being sent to the drive's DVD-writing laser or the drive's laser is failing to start writing the disc. The only thing you can do with Toast is trash the plist and prefs files in the User>Library>Preferences folder and relaunch Toast. You might get a laser-cleaning disc for your drive. (A different laser is used to write CDs than is used to write DVDs). Also try choosing Save as Disc Image with Toast and burn the resulting disc image using the Image File setting in the Toast Copy window.
Note that the laser cleaning idea was also mentioned in the previous link provided. Have you tied that? - would be nice if a simple solution worked.

Do I need an Apple Superdrive to burn DvDs on my Macbook Air?

I have tried numerous Internet applications and none of them have worked. I have an ASUS export drive but whenever I try to burn, it just burns the data and not the actual movie.

To add to the post above. It is not the drive you are using, any external dvd drive will work on any computer. As above you need a special program to burn movies to a dvd disc so they can be played in a dvd player.
Oh I meant any dvd drive other than a apple superdrive. Apple has restricted those to only work on certain mac computers, the airs models being one of them. But any other brand will work fine on any computer.

Can no longer copy files between internal drives or from burned DVD's

This just started today as far as I can tell. We have 4 dual 2.7GHz G5's running 10.4.4. Two of them seem to work as normal. The other two won't let me drag/copy files from one of the internal drives to the desktop or the other internal.
We have two internal drives, the one with OSX on it that works fine as in I can copy/drag files to the other internal drive (labeled "AV") or to the desktop. The AV drive won't let me copy/drag any files to the desktop or the other internal, I get the circle with a line through it. Also when I burn a DVD I can't copy/drag the files anywhere on any drive. If I put a previously burned disk (burned prior to today) in I can copy it fine to any drive.
I have verified/repaired all disks, repaired permissions, and checked read&write permissions.
Any help?

OK, I figured it out (I'll admit to being a Mac n00b). I was using DVD+R's. So the act of trying to copy files from a DVD+R (even though it was burned in the same G5) changes something in the drives so nothing on them will copy.
Ejecting the DVD+R and restarting without the disk in it got it back to normal. The problem was reproduced when I tried the DVD+R again (just to confirm the issue and solution). Again a restart fixed it.
Moral of the story, don't use DVD+R in Macs even though they can burn to them.
Anyway, if anything hope this post can help other n00bies.
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Problem burning DVDs, NEED HELP QUICK

Hey,
I need help as soon as possible. I am using iMovieHD 5.0.2, along with iDVD 5.0.1. I have made a movie about 8 minutes long and all in all it totals 7.68Gigs, and i've tried burning it to a dvd. I did all the steps it says to, going to Share, sharing it with iDVD, then trying to burn it in iDVD. Yet whenever it asks me to insert a recordable dvd, i do, and the computer fails to recognize it. I am using a DVD-R, 4.7GB discs, 4x. I then realized that the movie i was trying to burn was larger than this disc, which might be the problem. I then created a 200mb movie and tried, but the same problem happened. My G5 is not recognizing the blank dvds, yet when i insert a dvd that was made a while ago from a different source, yet the same type of dvd, it plays fine.
The problem seems to be in recognizing the blank DVD, and im pretty sure that its compatible with this computer, being that it plays when theres already a movie on it.
Can someone please help me quickly, this is for a production company and we're losing out every day that i dont get this done. Thanks a million.

I don't have an answer, but as an initial diagnostic step, try loading a blank DVD while iDVD is not running. First open your System Preferences and select the CD/DVD icon. Make sure the options selected do not say "Ignore". Then load a blank disc. Depending on your preferences, you should get some sort of reaction - either a burn window opens or you get a prompt asking you what to do. If there's no reaction from the Finder, it would indicate that the drive is not recognizing the blank DVD. This would be either a hardware or a media compatibility problem. Only way to tell for sure is to run out and try a different brand of media.
- Andy
PowerMac G5 dual 2.5 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Superdrive not burning DVD's

Well I tried to burn a DVD on my iMac(Intel) and I use iDVD all the time on my MacBook, but this is the first time that I have used it on my iMac(Intel) and it read a message "Your Macintosh does not have the supported Superdrive" and said that I can't burn a DVD. So I checked what kind of DVD Drive I had via "About This Mac", and it showed me I had the capability and that it was a superdrive not a combo drive. Also I thought all iMac's come standard with DVD burning. Is there something wrong with my Superdrive, or iDVD?????

What are you calling an iDVD? Is it a disk you formerly burned with iDVD? Is it just a DVD-R or DVD+R you are trying to burn something on? Starting July 20, 2011 Apple stopped including iDVD on Macs, and sold it separately as part of iLife '11 through the non-App Store. Is that what you are missing and expecting to see come up when you enter a blank DVD? Or are you missing iDVD because you might have an older version of it that used to run in Rosetta, and now doesn't because you are running 10.7 or later? Or did you insert blank DVD and the Finder didn't know what to do with it?

Internal super drive cannot burn DVD from iDVD

I using MacBook pro 15" from 2010, when I using iDVD brun my DVD when the process go to multiplexing the disc kick out from super drive cannot complete the burning, but I used another mac to burn is work, I think is my Macbook pro super drive got a problem, so how can I fix the super drive problem, I try to download the super drive framware 3.0 but got the message said the update not for my macbook pro, I buy the new extenal super drive, go the message the super drive not support for my mac, I really need help. please please.

See Bengt Wärleby's post in this topic: Multiplexing Error
Follow this workflow to help assure the best qualty video DVD:
Once you have the project as you want it save it as a disk image via the File ➙ Save as Disk Image menu option. This will separate the encoding process from the burn process.
To check the encoding mount the disk image, launch DVD Player and play it. If it plays OK with DVD Player the encoding is good.
Then burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality. Always use top quality media: Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.

Burn DVD on Mac OS 10.7.5, Windows Vista no longer able to read it.

I burn a DVD today (DVD with 4.7G capacity) using the Finder which I normally do, it finish fine no error, and I was able to read on my Mac 10.7.5, but when I put it to my other laptop with Windows Vista it won't read it. Please note, I have been burn the DVD using the Finders and my PC Windows Vista was able to read it no problem, until today. I put the DVD I burn 2 weeks ago on my my PC and it read the DVD, but not one I burn today and I did burn 3 DVD already. Does anyone has the same problem.
My computer:
MacBook Pro with OS 10.7.5
8Gig Ram
I still have 40Gig HD space
Any help will be much appreciated.

Try to disable IPv6, also check for other solutions.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Error_loading_websites#IPv6
You can try to reset (power off/on) the router.
You can also try to uninstall (trash) and reinstall Firefox.
You can find the latest Firefox release in all languages and for all Operating Systems here:
*Firefox 18.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html

Burning DVD - PC/Mac Compatibility Problem

I purchased my Mac Pro at the beginning of this year. I used the DVD burner for the first time a couple weeks ago. I am a photographer and burned 317 images on a Memorex DVD-R for a client. I tested it on my computer and it seemed to work fine. When she received it, she could only open 87 images. It didn't show any other files on the disk. I burned a couple other DVDs and the same thing happens. Each time there are a different number of image files that show up when it's opened on a PC (from 75-87) but it looks fine on my computer. I don't know what's causing the problem. Help!!
Message was edited by: EKass

Memorex
I don't know what's causing the problem.
Try Verbatim DVD-R 16X

DVD Player rejects clean burned DVD on Mac Pro, G5 and G4

I have a disc from a colleague, standard NTSC which displays the following once the menu screen appears (and hangs afterwards immediately):
"DVD Player encountered an error it could not recover from. There was an error reading from disc. It might be scratched or dirty. [-36]"
Has anyone else encountered this with clean media? Thanks.

HI Ken,
Repair disk permissions.
Quit any open applications/programs. Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac.
Carolyn

Internal/external "superdrive" to burn DVDs/Need Mac hardware dictionary!!!

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