Non-Apple DVD drive in G4

[Dreamcast270mhz]

I have a Samsung IDE drive in my PMac G4, which Ubuntu recognizes, but OS X won't, so, is there a workaround to get OS X to recognize the DVD drive and use it?!

 

[bobtomay]

Don't know since I've never used a PPC Mac, but as many problems as you have with those G4s of yours, think you should change your sig.

 

[Jamie-Jamie]

What's not recognized? Like OS X can't use it at all? Disc Burning is disabled? Can you boot from the drive? I have some kind of third-party combo drive in my old Sawtooth, but it's fully supported. I got it years ago and it just works.

 

[Dreamcast270mhz]

@Jamie
Nothing at all in OS X, I just popped an HP in addition to the samsung, same results thus far. I can boot Linux cds in both drives, I'll dig out my OS X discs and see if those boot. But nothing at all, no programs even remotely know they're there. The samsung was in it during install so I don't think a reinstall will help at all. I'll try browsin lowendmac agin

 

[hughvane]

Whip that HP (or Samsung) out of the G4 and hook it up with an ATA-USB2 adaptor (plenty of those about) to see if an external optical drive is recognised.

 

[dtravis7]

Also how do you have the drives jumpered? On some older Macs I have had issues unless the Optical drives were set for Cable Select.

The only issues I have ever seen or know of with Macs and after market optical drives are some due to their firmware are not fully supported. Some will read but not write and some will not work in the iApps like iTunes. But any drive that worked and was properly jumpered that I have tried has at least come up even if it did not work fully.

 

[Dreamcast270mhz]

Master and Slave, I'll try CS, I am used to controllers not recognizing CS so I have a habit of M/S configs. Linux, everything works fine, even my windows only DVD drive shows up in linux and OS X. I don't have an IDE enclosure ATM, only SATA so external is a no go. I don't really need DVD burning, my external does that faster than any, just read dvds and r/w cds functionality. I'll report back

 

[johnwd5]

For a G4 did you format in Apple Partition Map or something else? (Hard drive)

Did you check patchburn? Free firmware app that will update the Samsung optical to 10.4; if you're running 10.5 it won't work.

 

[Dreamcast270mhz]

The HP is now recognized since CS on the samsung was changed. The samsung is now in system profiler, but I can't eject it or open it from the top bar icon, or f12. I tried a cd, was recognized. Thanks for the help guys! Hmm, :
SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616E:

Model: SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616E
Revision: F501
Serial Number:
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 1
Socket Type: Internal
Low Power Polling: No
Power Off: No

 

[johnwd5]

Reboot and press down on the mouse until the disc tray opens.