Second DVD Drive

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Hello all, I've been snooping around the forums for a while now and I hope that you guys will be able to help me.

I use a 2008 Mac Pro, and decided to put in a second DVD drive this morning. I took the drive out of a 2007 model Mac Pro and installed it in the 08 model's bottom Drive bay.

However after closing the system up and turning the computer back on, I can't figure out how to open the second drive. Pressing the eject button opens the top drive, but the bottom one fails to respond.

Are the drives from the previous generation of Mac Pros incompatable? Or is there some setting I need to adjust? Help would be greatly appreciated.
 
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It's a different shortcut to eject the tray for the second drive. I think it's command and the eject button or alt, or control, or shift. It's one of those but I can't remember which; it's been a few months since I used my MP with dual drives.

In any case, the eject icon should have shown up in the menu at the top when you added the second drive. The shortcut should show up there when you click the eject button from the menu. A drop down will appear with the shortcut.
 
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It's Alt/Option & Eject.
 
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It's Alt/Option & Eject.

Pressing either the eject key or the eject key while holding alt/option both open the upper drive. For some reason the lower one isn't responding. Any ideas?
 
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Which menu?

There is only one menu.
menu.jpg

Does the optical drive show up in the Hardware Profile?
Apple Icon> About This Mac> More Info> ATA
 

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Like eggo stated the top drive is the eject button and the bottom is the alt/option & the eject button.
 
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Ah, the plot thickens...

The drive is plugged correctly into the machine, but doesn't come up under the System Profiler. It only recognizes the drive in the upper bay.
 
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Ah, the plot thickens...

The drive is plugged correctly into the machine, but doesn't come up under the System Profiler. It only recognizes the drive in the upper bay.

I knew it.

You know this drive worked before install? It's connected to both the power and IDE cables? You removed the jumper piece from the second drive or moved it to the slave setting?
 
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I knew it.

You know this drive worked before install? It's connected to both the power and IDE cables? You removed the jumper piece from the second drive or moved it to the slave setting?

It's connected correctly, I double checked it the cables were fitted snugly. I didn't change anything with the jumper though, should I just remove the jumper from the second drive?
 
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Yea, give that a try. I forgot to do it the first time I installed the second DVD drive. Both were set to master but then they both opened at the same time.

If that doesn't work, try the non-working one using the IDE and power connections from the working DVD drive. If it still doesn't work, the drive has to be dead.
 
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Apropos absolutely nothing, I have disks stuck in BOTH my superdrives at the moment.

I just love that designer who thought an eject button on the drive was too ugly.

restart again . . . *yawn*
 
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Is there power coming to the drive?
 
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Ok, so I think I've found the problem. I'm pretty sure the IDE connection doesn't work. Both drives are getting power (I was able to open both using the button on the drive. However neither drive is recognized by the system while in the bottom tray, whether alone or with a second drive.

Thanks for the help guys.
 
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What a coincidence! I came onto the forum today to tell you all about adding a 2nd DVD drive to my 2007 Mac Pro !

Anyway what you need to do to eject the 2nd drive (and in fact what should be done by everyone anyway) is to add the EJECT menu !! To do this open your route drive - Open SYSTEM >-- LIBRARY >-- CORESERVICES >-- MENU EXTRAS then double click on "eject.menu". Once added this will add another icon in the top right corner of the screen. Click on this and you get the option to eject the DVD drive. If you have two drives it lists BOTH of them and you just select which one to eject.

Anyway I collected a Pioneer DVR- 215 today instead of a 115 ! DOH!! So I decided to investigate fitting a SATA DVD drive to the Mac Pro.

This is how you do it .....

1) Open your mac pro
2) Remove HD1, HD2, both memory risers, PCI-E card 1 and the optical drive caddy
3) Unscrew the little black screw in the corner of the front fan assembly
4) Remove the four screws in the memory riser hole!
5) Push the memory riser bracket to the back of the computer and rotate the metal cover that covers the two processors by about 20 degrees. (With the computer sat so that you are looking at the bottom of it turn it carefully clock wise.
6) Once the cover is removed slide a PCI card blanking plate (or as I do the little plate that holds your PCI-E cards in place) between the bottom of the front fan assembly and the bottom of the case (from the same position as described above!) and lever the front fan assembly up carefully and slowly whilst pulling carefully from the other side too.

You now have access to the TWO spare SATA sockets on the motherboard


7) Slide two SATA cables through the hole where the existing cables run into the optical drive bay. Get two SATA cables with the 90 degree ends on them so that they do not rise too far above the motherboard. Push them in and feed them through the hole. (I am telling you to use two cables because they cost 50p/$1 each or less and if you fit them now they are there for next year or when ever you need them to upgrade to blue-ray or similar!).
8) Fit a standard 4 pin power plug to 2 x SATA power adapter to the power plug that is NOT at the end of the cable.
9) Refit the fan assembly, processors cover, screws, memory risers, graphics card/PCI-E cards, hard drives etc

You should be back to about the place you started now but with the extra cables in the optical bay....

The optical bay bracket contains 4 spare screws ready to fit to your new drive

10) Remove the front of the drive tray by pulling it off from the bottom after opening it (you need to push a straightened out paper clip into the small hole at the front till it opens)
11) Fit the drive into the bracket using the four screws.
12) Fit either SATA cable and either power cable into the drive.

You can now restart your computer and the DVD should just work without any further todo!

When you take your Mac pro apart it will be absolutely full of dust DO NOT be tempted to use a hoover to remove the dust as the static can destroy it. Just use an air duster or similar.

Hope this helps. I bought a DVR-215BK (the BK means black) it works fine.


******** I will be fitting an LG blu-ray multi drive in the next few weeks and will let you all know how it goes ********
 
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******** I will be fitting an LG blu-ray multi drive in the next few weeks and will let you all know how it goes ********

Please do. I was thinking about getting a Blu-ray read drive but wasn't sure if I could even watch movies because I don't know if there are any Apple apps that work with Blu-ray. I was hoping someone else here would be the guinea pig.
 
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Please do. I was thinking about getting a Blu-ray read drive but wasn't sure if I could even watch movies because I don't know if there are any Apple apps that work with Blu-ray. I was hoping someone else here would be the guinea pig.

Sorry Bry but movies are REALLY going to be a problem. In order to watch a blu-ray movie the complete data path needs to be HDCP compliant. This means the MONITOR, the GRAPHICS CARD and the SOFTWARE. Unfortunately no Mac pro graphics cards are HDCP compliant at this time so you wont be able to watch films YET. We will need to wait for Apple to release their ble-ray option first so that we know. Clearly TOAST 8 or 9 will allow you to use the computer for data and we should be able to use some video software to view non copyright material as films but I am not sure about watching movies.

Another thing is that I wouldn't bother fitting a read only drive. Read only drives cost about £85 at the moment and you can get read/write drives for about £135+
 
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I forgot about HDCP. I am so used to watching DVDs on my TV using my Mac it's become 2nd nature.
Blu-ray burners aren't much more expensive but I will wait till the discs are affordable. That won't be another year or two and DL DVDs are still large enough for me.
 
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I forgot about HDCP. I am so used to watching DVDs on my TV using my Mac it's become 2nd nature.
Blu-ray burners aren't much more expensive but I will wait till the discs are affordable. That won't be another year or two and DL DVDs are still large enough for me.

I know what you mean, a local reseller was seller 500Gb Samsung drives at £36+VAT (about $75) today and at that price hard drives are more tempting!
 
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Yea, blu-ray still a luxury.

Thanks for the heads up about the hidden SATA ports. I didn't realize they are that hidden. eek!
 

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