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  1. #1


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    el capitan kills connection to apple external dvd
    Just want Everyone to know, I replaced my internal optical dvd drive with an SSD in my 2011 macbook pro. Put the internal optical drive into an external case. It worked fine until I upgraded from Yosemite to el capitan. Just came from the genius bar where I was informed that el capitan installed (?) firmware that cannot be uninstalled and it pretty much kills any connection to an apple external optical drive. My macbook pro will no longer play dvds from my once internal/now external apple drive. The mac now will not allow any apple external drive to work. (error -70012) VLC will not work either. And you can't override anything in the system to change its search for internal dvd drive to external -- No matter what!
    Nice, Apple. Thanks for the lack of any warning. Now I have to buy a new third party drive to access my dvds. It's not like Apple benefits from this. Buying another Apple drive to solve the problem won't work. I tried to use my daughter's oem external apple drive an no dice.
    If you are on Yosemite or lower and have an external apple dvd drive -- DON'T UPGRADE TO EL CAPITAN or your external drive will no longer work.

  2. #2


    Member Since
    Jan 22, 2010
    Location
    Victoria, BC
    Posts
    20,911
    Specs:
    Mid-2012 MBP (16GB, 1TB HD), Monoprice 24-inch second monitor, iPhone 5s 32GB, iPad Air 2 64GB
    Why not report that as a bug so that they can have the engineers develop a fix (though admittedly the number of people who would find themselves in your exact situation is quite small). I think what the Apple geniuses were saying is that the firmware for an Apple internal drive depends on it being actually in the machine, and won't work with an external case (though any external DVD drive should work fine). That's a bit odd, but of course they could not anticipate that people would (like you and I both did) remove the internal DVD drive for more SSD/HD storage, so I can see where the flaw came from.

  3. #3


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    el capitan kills connection to apple external dvd
    Thanks Chas_m for your comment. But wouldn't a visit to the genius bar (2x) and their assessment suffice to report the bug? Oh, I suppose not. I don't have the slightest idea how to report the bug, but by the time they institute a fix, I will have already been forced to buy a new drive. I need this now and can't wait for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn.
    Still, it's nice to know I'm not alone here. So until Apple figures this out (and maybe decides it's worth fixing), a heads up to anyone else before upgrading.

  4. #4


    Member Since
    Jan 22, 2010
    Location
    Victoria, BC
    Posts
    20,911
    Specs:
    Mid-2012 MBP (16GB, 1TB HD), Monoprice 24-inch second monitor, iPhone 5s 32GB, iPad Air 2 64GB
    Yes, thanks for letting us know. Sorry that happened -- at least the external DVD burner should cost very much (under $50 if you shop around).

  5. #5

    IWT's Avatar
    Member Since
    Jan 23, 2009
    Location
    Born in Scotland, Worked in Scotland then England, Now live in Wales
    Posts
    1,946
    Specs:
    Late 2015 5K 27-inch Retina iMac, 4GHz i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB Flash Drive, El Capitan, 10.11.6
    I can confirm that if an external DVD drive worked in, say, Mavericks, it will still work fine in El Capitan.

    Ian


    Sent from my iPad using Mac Forums
    Ian

  6. #6


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    Quote Originally Posted by IWT View Post
    I can confirm that if an external DVD drive worked in, say, Mavericks, it will still work fine in El Capitan.

    Ian


    Sent from my iPad using Mac Forums
    Not on my machine. If the computer originally had an internal dvd drive it won't work with an external apple drive. According to genius, the external apple drives only work with an imac or macbook air or mac that never had an internal drive.

  7. #7

    RadDave's Avatar
    Member Since
    Jan 20, 2012
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    3,459
    Specs:
    MBP 13" (2013); 8 GB RAM; SSD 256 GB; OS 10.12
    Quote Originally Posted by IWT View Post
    I can confirm that if an external DVD drive worked in, say, Mavericks, it will still work fine in El Capitan.
    Well, I would agree w/ Ian - my MBPro is on El Capitan (10.11.2) and I've owned an external Apple SuperDrive for nearly 3 years which worked fine on the laptop w/ previous operating systems - just attached the USB optical drive and started a commercial DVD movie w/o a problem - now, I have not tried to 'burn' any CD-Rs (my main reason for using the device). Dave
    If you are helped, increase the reputation of the poster -

  8. #8


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    Quote Originally Posted by RadDave View Post
    Well, I would agree w/ Ian - my MBPro is on El Capitan (10.11.2) and I've owned an external Apple SuperDrive for nearly 3 years which worked fine on the laptop w/ previous operating systems - just attached the USB optical drive and started a commercial DVD movie w/o a problem - now, I have not tried to 'burn' any CD-Rs (my main reason for using the device). Dave
    RadDave, So did your laptop ever have an internal dvd drive or did it come without and you've always used the external? Apple says the issue comes from having an original internal dvd drive and then trying to use an external. The laptop will only recognize an internal if that's the way it came. If your laptop originally came with an internal dvd drive and you removed it (which is what I did) and your external apple drive works then something else is going on here.

  9. #9

    MacInWin's Avatar
    Member Since
    Jul 07, 2008
    Location
    Winchester, VA
    Posts
    6,354
    Specs:
    2015 rMBP, 2008 iMac, iPhone 6, iPad mini, 13" MBP, AppleTV and two MacMinis
    I will agree with tonythenose to a certain extent. My MBP had an internal DVD which I replaced with an SSD. Now iDVD won't find the same drive in an external enclosure to play DVDs. I can play DVDs in VLC, so the system CAN read the drive, but iDVD won't play. At one time there was a hex edit to a file that would enable the use of an external drive in a system that had had an internal, but I don't remember where it was. Each update to the OS overwrote the file, so it needed to be re-edited each time. I haven't tried it in ElCap so I don't know if SIP will block the hack or not. I'll do some research to see if I can find the hex edit. It was simple, too, there are four instances where the word "internal" needed to be changed to "external" and iDVD worked just fine.

    As I recall, the change was made in Mavericks.

    EDIT: Wow, that didn't take much to find: http://www.cnet.com/news/addressing-...rives-in-os-x/

    UPDATE: Sadly, SIP seems to be blocking the hack. I can copy the framework to the desktop, edit the file as needed, but even using CLI and sudo, I can't copy the edited file back to the original location. I won't disable SIP, but for the OP, if this is more important than security, then disabling SIP may allow you to put the file back into the library after editing it.

    UPDATE #2. I forgot to mention that VLC plays DVDs from the eternal just fine. Haven't tried to get it to full screen, but he dvd did load and play.
    Last edited by MacInWin; 01-02-2016 at 12:19 PM.

  10. #10


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    Quote Originally Posted by tonythenose View Post
    RadDave, So did your laptop ever have an internal dvd drive or did it come without and you've always used the external? Apple says the issue comes from having an original internal dvd drive and then trying to use an external. The laptop will only recognize an internal if that's the way it came. If your laptop originally came with an internal dvd drive and you removed it (which is what I did) and your external apple drive works then something else is going on here.
    Sorry, I meant The laptop will only recognize an external if that's the way it came (without an internal).

  11. #11

    dtravis7's Avatar
    Member Since
    Jan 04, 2005
    Location
    Modesto, Ca.
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    28,982
    Specs:
    iMac 2010 27" QuadI7 OSX10.11, iMac 2008 OSX10.11, MBP Late2011OSX10.11 , iPad Air, iPhone 3GS
    I 100% agree with Jake and had it happen here even way back. The URL Jake provided at least was a fix that worked at one time.

  12. #12

    RadDave's Avatar
    Member Since
    Jan 20, 2012
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    3,459
    Specs:
    MBP 13" (2013); 8 GB RAM; SSD 256 GB; OS 10.12
    Quote Originally Posted by tonythenose View Post
    RadDave, So did your laptop ever have an internal dvd drive or did it come without and you've always used the external? Apple says the issue comes from having an original internal dvd drive and then trying to use an external. The laptop will only recognize an internal if that's the way it came. If your laptop originally came with an internal dvd drive and you removed it (which is what I did) and your external apple drive works then something else is going on here.
    Hi Tony..... - my MBPro is early 2013 and did not come w/ an internal optical drive, so I cannot really comment on your issue - I see others have responded, so let me take a read of the newer posts. Good luck - Dave
    If you are helped, increase the reputation of the poster -

  13. #13


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    Smile
    Quote Originally Posted by RadDave View Post
    Hi Tony..... - my MBPro is early 2013 and did not come w/ an internal optical drive, so I cannot really comment on your issue - I see others have responded, so let me take a read of the newer posts. Good luck - Dave
    UPDATE: Well I reset the SMC on my laptop and now I got VLC to play a dvd. I've sent Apple a bug report and we'll see if they do anything, but at least I don't have to buy a new dvd player! But I don't think I can burn dvds so I still have to figure that out.
    Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and input.

  14. #14


    Member Since
    Oct 16, 2010
    Location
    Brentwood Bay, BC, Canada
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    4,409
    Quote Originally Posted by tonythenose View Post
    UPDATE: Well I reset the SMC on my laptop and now I got VLC to play a dvd. I've sent Apple a bug report and we'll see if they do anything, but at least I don't have to buy a new dvd player! But I don't think I can burn dvds so I still have to figure that out.
    Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and input.

    That seems like a strange fix for the problem, but I'm glad to read that it worked, even though I shouldn't need it.

  15. #15


    Member Since
    Jan 01, 2016
    Posts
    9
    Quote Originally Posted by pm-r View Post
    That seems like a strange fix for the problem, but I'm glad to read that it worked, even though I shouldn't need it.
    Okay, I take it back. It played a burned dvd but wouldn't play a commercial studio movie. Very frustrating. I guess I'll go buy a third party dvd drive.

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