Using an external DVD burner with iBook G4

Question

Hi,
I am new to this ibook game so bear with me....I purchased an iBook G4 from ebay and hooked my Lacie external DVD burner up to it as it only has a combo drive. Anytime I try to burn DVDs though it says that it cannot use this disk. When I look in disc utility it says that the write ability of any DVD i insert is read only. Under system profiler my external burner does appear as drive type CD-RW/DVD-RW though. What can I do to burn DVDs? I am running osx 10.3.7 by the way and previously used my external burner with an old emac succesfully.

Answer 1

You could try and see if the external optical drive is supported through
third-party burn software, one example of which may be Burn, it is free.
http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html
{note: there are two links to download - one is for G3s only}
Is the cable you have in good health and do you have a known good spare?
And update the OS X to 10.3.9. Get the large file 'combo' for this;
and then check for security updates, java updates, etc. Be sure
to run Disk Utility's 'repair disk permissions' before & after updates.
You will have to update the Panther 10.3.x system to 10.3.9 and also
get any other updates available to the system. This may be why the
external drive won't work in the present computer. Also, Burn needs
to have 10.3.9 or later in order to work, too...
Hopefully this helps...
Good luck & happy computing!