Need Advice on buying external DVD burner

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My G4 Powerbook's DVD burner has crapped out (or the software anyway) I was able to use Toast to burn CDs and DVDs but now it only works for CDs.

Can anyone suggest a cheap and easy to use external DVD burner that is Mac friendly?
And, if it would run just using Toast 7 Titanium? I'm not a real wire-head here.
Or, maybe point me in the direction of some helpful web pages?

I have a Powerbook G4 (1.67 GHz) running OS 10.4.11.

thanks in advance!
 

cwa107


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chscag

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Check out this Link.

Keep in mind that any external burner you buy will have to be able to connect via firewire in order to be able to boot your Powerbook from it. Intel machines can be booted from USB or FW, however PPC machines (yours) require a FW hookup.

:) cwa107 beat me by one minute.

Regards.
 

cwa107


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Excellent point, chscag. Nice catch - I didn't consider the ability to boot from disc, which can be an important one if your internal drive doesn't work.
 
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Hold your breath... iMac 10.4.11, 1.83GHz, 2G RAM, 120GHD
Not quite 100% true...

Just about any external, USB DVD burner will work fine. There's no need to purchase anything labeled as being "Mac compatible". And yes, DVD burners haven't changed much in recent years, so Toast 7 should work fine.

I learned the hard way that this is NOT true... I purchased a BUSlink USB external Dual Layer DVD+RW unit off of CL and searched everywhere for a driver and had come to find out that this company makes PC specific drives:Grimmace:, however, they do make Mac compatible external HDD's.

This is the reason I have joined this forum, is because I am tired of purchasing things that no matter how much investigating I do, I still run into walls and want to avoid wasting time effort and most of all, $$$!

There is my soap-box rant for the day...

That aside, Hello everyone!
 

chscag

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That BUSLink DVD burner must be using some real strange firmware as I have yet to run into a USB external burner that wouldn't work. As a matter of fact I have several external USB 3.5" floppy drives that work fine on my Mac but are not even "seen" by Windows 7.

Anyway, welcome to the Mac Forums!
 
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Then I must be missing something with finding the correct drivers, because my mac is not recognizing the DVD burner at all.
 

chscag

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Just a note of information about DVD external burners:

Your Mac will not recognize any external DVD burner unless there is a disk in it that it can read from. Try that and get to me here in the same thread. I'm guessing that after loading the burner with a disk that your Mac will recognize and be able to use it.
 
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Hold your breath... iMac 10.4.11, 1.83GHz, 2G RAM, 120GHD
Just a note of information about DVD external burners:

Your Mac will not recognize any external DVD burner unless there is a disk in it that it can read from. Try that and get to me here in the same thread. I'm guessing that after loading the burner with a disk that your Mac will recognize and be able to use it.

Still not happening. I put in a movie and a blank DVD+RW... nadda.

I'll gladly try juggling monkey's on top of a mountain while facing east on one leg if it works?!
 

chscag

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Well, I don't know what to say except that I can put a BUSLink external DVD burner on my "bad" hardware list. There's always a first. I guess you now have a nice paper weight. :)

On a more pleasant note, I bought a cheap ($29.95) Samsung external dual layer burner from Amazon and it works fine both in Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Don't know if they're still selling them or not as it's been about 6 months ago since I bought it.
 

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Well, I don't know what to say except that I can put a BUSLink external DVD burner on my "bad" hardware list. There's always a first. I guess you now have a nice paper weight. :)

On a more pleasant note, I bought a cheap ($29.95) Samsung external dual layer burner from Amazon and it works fine both in Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Don't know if they're still selling them or not as it's been about 6 months ago since I bought it.

I have this one and it works like a champ - don't even need to use the secondary USB plug for additional power. Nice and slimline too, you can pop it in your laptop bag and never know it's even there.

Never heard of BUSlink. Sounds like a cheap Chinese knock-off brand, kind of like StarTech. In general, I try to stay away from that kind of crap.
 

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