Need external Cd/DVD drive for my 2009 iMac. the internal one no longer reads CDs. thoughts?

I need to finish putting CDs into my iTunes library. The drive on here just spits out my CDs now.

"Apple even makes one but it's $79 which is kind of pricy."
And is the same one that used to be inside iMacs. It is cheap and not very good and prone to the same type of premature failures.

Similar Messages

Recommendations, please, for external DVD writer for my 2006 iMac. (Internal drive unable to write coherently.)

Recommendations, please, for an external DVD writer for my 2006 iMac whose internal drive is writing unreadable discs.
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac5,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          4 MB
Memory:          4 GB
Bus Speed:          667 MHz

Thanks, A Brody. Don't know what the PRAM battery is. Here are more details of the fault ... Although I've had the iMac for 5 years this may be the first time I've tried copying a video recording onto the DVD drive (I've made lots of CD copies without a problem). The folder and files all seem to be reproduced in identical order on the disc but my domestic DVD player cannot make sense of the recording, unlike the original source DVD from which the files originated. The drive has always been noisy but I've never assumed it shouldn't be! Does this fit your PRAM battery theory? If so, please explain more. Thanks.

Recommend an external CD/DVD drive for a newbie?

Hi,
Just bought my very first Mac, a new iMac. Then discovered it didn't have a CD/DVD drive. Woops. Probably should have realised that earlier...
Anyway, my student budget won't really stretch to a SuperDrive right now, so I was hoping someone could recommend an external drive or even just what I should be looking for in one? I'm not a tech aficionado, and a quick look around has left me very confused at how many options are out there!
I'd mainly be using it for occasional computer games (eg. Sims 3) and watching DVDs, and maybe DVD writing as I get to grips with iMovie. Will a bog standard drive with CD and DVD in the title suffice, or do I need something more? Or are SuperDrives the only ones that really work with iMacs?
Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer me!

SuperDrive refers to an optical drive that can both read and write CDs and DVDs.
Most external optical drives are combination drives (SuperDrives), now.
Do you watch regular DVDs or BluRay?
You can now buy BluRay reading/writing optical drives, but the Mac doesn't play BluRay movies natively.
You would need to purchase and download a BluRay player app.
You need a Super Drive for what you are doing.
Apple's own drive works and isn't that expensive. There are more expensive drives. There are more cheaper drives.
Do a search for external optical drives. For your new iMac you can either search for USB 3.0, USB 2.0, Thunderbolt or FireWire external optical drives.
USB 3.0, Thunderbolt and FireWire will be faster data throughput drives.
Good Luck

HT1752 I need a replacement hard drive for model a1311 iMac

I removed my old hard drive, which is an original WD 500GB from my mid 2010 iMac, to try to replace with a seagate 1T but I found out that the original hard drive (thermal sensor) has 8 pins and my new one has only 4 pins. What should I do?

Hi, only Apple has those special drives as far as I know, but there are workarounds...
Tukaine
Sep 23, 2012 10:59 PM
Since the late 2009 iMacs came out, replacing the hard drive has caused the internal Hard Drive Fan to start running at around 6000RPM.
This is due to Apple replacing the external Hard Drive temperature sensor with a proprietary firmware and using the drives internal sensor. Replacement drives do not contain the firmware to deliver temperature data on the temperature sensor cable. When the iMac does not receive a good signal from the hard drive it puts the fan at full speed to protect the drive.
If you replace your drive, your iMac will initially seem fine, but soon the fan will begin to speed up to full speed. Resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) will have a temporary effect, but again the fan will speed up.
Fixes people have used in the past included:
• Using smcFanControl and the terminal to set a MAX speed for the fan and writing scripts to start this after every sleep/restart.
• Shorting the temperature sensor cable (Not a possibility on 2011 iMacs) this tricks the iMac into thinking the drives temperature is very low, hence slow fan speed.
Both these fixes are less then perfect and leave the drive in a dangerous situation with no protection from overheating.
Another option people try is other Fan Control software. These programs will not work for this particular issue as they often only control the base speed, and if they do control the fans actual speed they rely on the temperature reported by the sensor which is now incorrect.
HDD Fan Control
HDD Fan Control works to fix this issue by reading the drives internal temperature using the S.M.A.R.T protocol and set the fans actual speed to a value good to protect the drive.  It runs at startup and continually to always control the fan correctly, prevent the loud fan noise and protect the drive from overheating
Instead of HDDFan Control, get the free SSDFan Control
http://exirion.net/ssdfanctrl/

Which external firewire hard drive for protools and imac?

hello group,
i see many posts about external firewire hard drive issues. i would like to purchase a drive of 7200rpm or faster, 200gb or larger for recording with protools into an imac intel duo 2.0. hopefully theres a brand that i can buy that will just work out of the box. i have no mac troubleshooting skills and wish to avoid any compatability complications. is there a general consensus on a no brainer drive for mac newbies? thanks for any advice.
jeff

I highly recommend that Mercury Elite Pro drives from OWC as well. They are very stable and reliable due to their use of the Oxford 911 chipset and not the more common - and more problematic - Prolific chipset. I also use SuperDuper to make fully bootable clones of my internal drive for backing up everything.
If their history for me and others continues with you, there should be absolutely no troubles for you using an OWC drive and Protools.

I needed a 2tb hard drive for my new iMac whats the best to work with time machine for around £100

Any suggestions about the best 2 tb hard drive to work with my imac,compatible with time machine for around £100

There is no such thing as "best" and "inexpensive", you either want one or the other but you cannot get both. IMHO I'd recommend OWC's Mercury Elite Pro (www.macsales.com) however because you are on the other side of the pond you may want to consider a Lacie product. High quality, not cheap but good stuff for the most part.

Recommend a good external DVD drive for Mac?

can anyone recommend a good external rewritable DVD drive for my EMac? i want something that will work with iDVD of course... thanks in advance.

LaCie is one. The Macally 500BC Firewire/USB 2.0 enclosure with a separate Pioneer S-Drive is another viable option.
I personally use multiple ADS Tech 1394 Pyro FW Enclosures with a Pioneer 110D S-Drive as well as a few ext. FW HD's and they all work well on mult. G4 systems (completely interchangeable via FW 400).
This link may help you to build your own S-Drive if you wish:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4022274#4022274
Good luck
SDMacuser

Replace DVD drive of T430 laptop with extra internal Harddisk

Hi,
I want to increase the storage capacity of my T430 laptop by removing the DVD drive and replacing it with the internal HDD.What should be the HDD sepcification for this and how to close the lid after adding the new HDD.How much capacity we can increase.Also is there any option to add extra capacity by replacing the internal drive of 500 GB and what should be the sepcoifcation.
Is there any why to avoid installing the same set of software after HDD is replaced?
Regards
Rajaniesh

Detailed specifications for T430, including HDD, are here:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?DocID=PD024705
To install a HDD instead of the DVD drive, you would need to use an UltraBay caddy.
You can also replace the internal drive by opening the HDD flap on the side.
You can clone HDDs by using software and a special cable, thus avoiding reinstalling programs separately.

Can i use ANY external CD/DVD drive with the NEW mac mini?

We just got the newest Mac Mini and want to get an external drive for importing and burning CD's and DVD's.
Can we use ANY external CD/DVD drive or do we NEED to use the "Apple MacBook Air SuperDrive."
Thanks
Eliot

Maybe.
I've had some situations where a non-Apple DVD drive would not do a particular job. When I tried the same project with the Apple SuperDrive everything worked perfectly.
This is an area where I would not try to save money.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC684ZM/A

Installation via External CD/DVD Drive

I have tried fruitlessly to install Windows XP and Windows 7 via CD and DVD on my computer via my external CD/DVD drive. It is a LG GE20 Read/Writer. I can however boot the Mac OS X 10.6 Install Disc from it.
rEFIt recognizes the disc as a valid windows disc (both of them), but when I choose it, I am left with a black screen and blinking white cursor. I tried my linux mint disk, and got the same result. (It's only working with the Mac OS X Install Disc)
My Macbook Pro 3.1 (aluminum, pre-unibody, Santa Rosa I believe) currently has a broken superdrive, so I've had to use this external. Unfortunately I need Windows installed natively (please do not tell me to use VMWare, VirtualBox or Parallels, I already have VMWare and VirtualBox).
I also tried to make a bootable USB from my 7 install disc, by formatting as FAT32 in VMWare, and using "convert" on the DOS prompt to make it NTFS. It is shown by NTFS-3g and is completely working. I copied the entire disc's files over as directed by a tutorial, but it does not boot. (It is MBR)
Any advice would be thoroughly appreciated.

OWC (macsales.com) is a good place to shop for Mac-centric accessories. They cater to Mac users. They have FireWire external optical drives.
If you decide to get one later, you may want to send an email to OWC's sales/tech support to ask if their external FireWire drives are bootable. Just because it is FireWire does not necessarily mean you can boot from a particular FireWire optical drive.

Dvd drive in early 2009 failure

I have an early 2009 24" iMac. The DVD drive in it failed around 16 months ago and had it replaced free of charge with Applecare. While upgrading to Mountain Lion today I discovered the newer drive has failed. Doesn't read or write DVD's but regular CD's still work.
My Applecare expired back in May. What is Apple's policy on replacement parts? Am I out of luck? I'm thinking I don't want to get caught with failed apple parts anymore being !00's of miles from the closest Apple Store. So I hate to say it, but I may end up getting a budget PC and have a Large iMac doorstop.

Carbon Copy Cloner is probably the easiest way to setup and copy everything from one drive to another.
It also gives you a couple of options for moving everything from the old to the new drive.
1. Clone your existing Internal HDD to an External Hard Drive and then swap out the Internal Hard Drives. Then Boot from the External HD and clone it back to the New Internal HDD.
2. Swap out the HDDs and put the iMac's original HDD into an External Enclosure. Then boot from the original iMac drive in the Enclosure and clone it to the new HDD.
Personally I prefer the first method, because it gives you a backup copy in case something goes wrong.

Cannot boot to Windows disc from external USB DVD drive.

I have a MacBook Pro 17" Early 2011 8,3. I have tried to use bootcamp to install Windows 7 from a external USB DVD drive. All I get, like many people, is a black screen with a blinking cursor, as if it never makes it to boot. I tried restarting to the OS selection for holding alt, and tried the DVD again, did not work.
I saw a few posts claiming that this didn't work on some models of Mac because of a EFI problem that would not allow booting from a external USB, which is really stupid because it would seems some models can... And MacBook airs can... Can someone please confirm this for me? Has anyone found a resolution?
If not, APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS.

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. Yes the MBP is currently running Tiger, I want to flatten this with a fresh install of Leopard. I can view the install DVD when in Tiger currently.
I haven't tried what you have suggested, but I have seen various posts suggesting this approach. I've also seen several posts explain how to create a partition on an external firewire Harddrive and this seems to have worked for various people.
This would however mean that I didn't really need the external Lacie drive at all, as I've got access to my G5s DVD drive over the network. The more I search on this, the more convinced I am the USB drive was a bad idea.
Once again thank for the response.

How do I install OSX10.5 using an external LaCie DVD Drive?

I purchased a External LaCie Drive recommended by Apple Genius Bar to affordably replace a dead internal DVD drive on an older iMac G4. I bought a family package of Leopard OSX10.5 and installed 10.5 on my main computer (G5) using its internal drive. Trying to install it on my G4 desktop using the external drive, the install program will not boot the G4 holding down the C key during start up. How do you boot up with an external drive so you can download a new system?

Thanks for entering this discussion. I booted with the option key down and it showed the only drive recognized for start up is my main HD even though I had the 10.5 Installation disk in the external DVD player burner.. That was the gist of my problem. My G4 will not recognize the USB External DVD player burner Drive for start up. Once booted up from my HD anything I put on the DVD drive is viewed- a CD, a DVD, an commercial movie, even OSX 10.5 Installation. But when I try to install it, it asks to "restart" but can't restart using a system other than the one on my HD which prevents the installation procedure from ocurring.
The ATA CD/DVD disk drive in my G4 will only play CDs and it is not recognized booting up with option key down when the DVD installation disk is in it. Do you know if Apple supplies OSX 10.5 in CD format? or a system startup I could use in my internal drive on CDs that if booted would allow me to go right to Install. If I could start up on a CD formated system, I think I could then open the installation disk on my external DVD Player and install it.

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

I want a 2nd DVD drive for my iMac

Hi
Have a new 24" Alloy iMac and well, having moved my main computer from a PC to a MAC is great, iLove it! Problem though is there are lots of times where I could utilize a 2nd CD/DVD drive. Apparently the external drive for the MacBook Air is exclusive to that (which doesn't make any sense to me - Apple would sell a ton of these if they made them non-specific rather than to only a small % of sales). So I've been poking around here on the forums and I've seen some referenced to MacSales.com site - but with such a beautiful machine as an iMac, I can't bring myself to getting one of these butt ugly things. Found a handsome LG CD/DVD with Lightscribe external drive, but no evidence of Mac support.
Where can I get, or how can I get an external DVD drive for my Mac? I'd rather avoid patching if possible.
Better still: Apple - update the MacAir drive to be universal for your machines please!
Thanks!

OWC (macsales.com) would be a good source, since they are very Mac-centric and should know what works well and what does not work well with Macs and Mac OS X.
They may be boxy and "ugly" but those full-sized tray-loading drives are the most reliable type. Plus with a tray-loader, you can read the strangely shaped and mini- discs that would choke a slot-loader.
If you want more style, LaCie is also Mac-oriented and they have some choices.
http://www.lacie.com/us/index.htm

Need external Cd/DVD drive for my 2009 iMac. the internal one no longer reads CDs. thoughts?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for