01-02-2009, 04:02 PM

Like most my optical drive went bad on my mini. I purchased the same optical drive the UJ-845-C that came with my original mini. Took the mini apart plugged in the new drive. The mini does not even recognize the drive. I have used the firmware to locate the drive, the "About this Mac" to locate the drive. The mini just cannot find the drive. Funny thing if I install my old bad drive the mini finds it right away. Is there another step I need to perform in order to get the mini to recognize the new drive.
Thanks.

01-02-2009, 04:42 PM

Are you able to locate the drive with System Profiler or Disk Utility?

If not, are you willing to try the new 'bare' drive via an adaptor? You'll need to buy a kit (about US$18), and with it hook the new drive into your Mini via a USB plug/port. This will test:
a) the power to the drive itself - you'll be able to hear/feel the unit spinning
b) the ATA or SATA connection at the rear of the drive
c) its USB connectivity (not that that is important when the drive is installed inside the Mini).

You may find that the experience of an optical drive 'outside' your Mini will persuade you to go for the alternative of an external firewire optical drive.

Incidentally, what was wrong with the old Matshita drive?

01-02-2009, 07:59 PM

Neither System Profiler nor Disk Utility recognize the drive. I did purchase a USB external drive. But as I discovered later when I upgraded to Leopard, the mini does not recognize a USB drive on bootup. Therefore I could not boot from Leopard. I then had to purchase a firewire drive which the mini recognizes on boot up, enabling me to boot the Leopard disk.

The old Matshita drive failed to read the Leopard disk in order to boot from it. This drive plays music CD's just fine and is recognized. I have not tried to have it burn anything.

What is annoying is the replacement drive for the Matshita is exactly the same drive as the Matshita and why the mini does not recognize the drive is beyond me. So what I am trying to find out is other then slide a replacement drive into the bus is there something else that needs to be done in order for the mini to recognize the drive?

01-02-2009, 08:43 PM

Funny, I have been into 3 Minis and had them completely apart and never looked at the Optical drive. I wonder if there are any small Jumpers on the drive that need to be changed? Take a look at the back of both drives and see if you see any. Unless the drive is defective, I can't see any other reason it should not mount in finder.

01-02-2009, 09:39 PM

This doesn't answer your question directly, but I extend dtravis' thought that the Matshita may be faulty to saying - "have you considered an alternative brand?" I read many posts about Matshita drive failures in dealing with both modern disk media and MacOS. This is a suggestion only - return the new Matshita to supplier on the basis that it isn't working, and ask instead for a Pioneer drive. The 115D (ATA) or 215D (SATA) (or 116D/216D) may in fact be the best solution for your situation.

01-02-2009, 09:54 PM

Thank you both for your responses. I looked on the back of the drive for jumpers, etc., there are no jumpers. Actually this is my second optical drive I brought the first back thinking it was defective, but neither drive works. I may use the firewire device and boot up the OS disk and see if the disk install recognizes the drive.

01-02-2009, 10:05 PM

A PS from me, along the jumper theme - I took a look at a Pioneer 105R that I pulled from an external enclosure. It has a jumper set at Master. Recently I removed 3 old optical drives from discarded computers, each had a jumper, but I can't recall just how each was set, and two were from old Win machines.

01-02-2009, 10:15 PM

Hugh, is not the Pioneer 115d a normal sized desktop optical drive though? The Mini needs that small thin laptop drive. The Matsu in my iMac G5 iSight just started to have bad issues. Will not burn any DVD and has issues reading most burned media. All that will fit is the thin laptop drive so I ordered a Matushia (can't spell it right as the word filter will zap it!) from OWC as I need an internal burner in the machine. I really do not like Matushia (SP) burners but with the thin Macs there is not much other choice that I can find.

Also, where did you get your drive from? I ordered mine from OWC as they stand behind their products.

01-02-2009, 10:59 PM

I purchased the drive from Comptick. They have not given me any problems returning the drive and remember I am on my second drive that does not work.

01-02-2009, 11:03 PM

Originally Posted by jcgg

I purchased the drive from Comptick. They have not given me any problems returning the drive and remember I am on my second drive that does not work.

Yeah I caught that this was the 2nd new drive. I will do some searching and get back to you. Strange issue for sure!

01-03-2009, 12:11 AM

Originally Posted by dtravis7

Hugh, is not the Pioneer 115d a normal sized desktop optical drive though? The Mini needs that small thin laptop drive.

Yes, you're right Denis. I didn't re-check this YouTube - Upgrading Mac Mini (I've lost count of the number of times I've referred it to Mac-Mini posts). The guy does a good job of explaining things EXCEPT the hard drive-optical drive combo cage.

The Matsu in my iMac G5 iSight just started to have bad issues ... All that will fit is the thin laptop drive so I ordered a Matushita (can't spell it right as the word filter will zap it!)

I love the way various sites sanitize that word. If one thinks about it, the middle section of the word tells us quite a lot, hmm?

I need an internal burner in the machine. I really do not like Matushita burners but with the thin Macs there is not much other choice that I can find.

What about Sony? Lite-on also make a slim drive (I make no representation about that last brand).

A little further research provides the Pioneer KO8, the successor to the KO6 used in the G5 iMac, maybe the Intel iMac too (not sure).

04-24-2012, 11:55 AM

The 845CA also I believe has a firmware version. 678-0503 B or G There may be others. The B versions do not seem to work in PPC Mac minis. The G versions will. If someone else has tried this let me know.