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Apfhex · 03:23 PM

I may very soon be in the market for an external CD drive for my PowerBook G4 (now running Panther), because my internal combo drive appears to no longer accept CD-R discs (a Very Bad Thing for me).

I need the drive to be fully MacOS X 10.3, iTunes 4.1, and Toast 6 compatible, and it needs to be able to read Windows burned ISO CD-R's well (my combo drive ALWAYS had problems with those), as well as 80 mm CD's (since it would be tray loading, I assume it would).

I'm currently considering the LaCie d2 52x32x52 External FireWire CD-RW Drive. I've also had a look at the OWC Mercury Pro CD-RW Lite-on 52x32x52 External. I'm was leaning towards the LaCie ($113 on Amazon.com) before I read about problems with iTunes. Now it sounds like the OWC drive is better.

Are there any other drives I should consider? What are peoples experiences with these drives? I'm also open to looking at DVD/CD-RW Combo drives, or even DVD-R drives if the price is right. And the drive doesn't have to be as fast as 52x32x52 - my CD-Rs only support 48x anyway. ^^

Stogieman · Oct 26, 2003, 01:14 AM

Check out www.dealmac.com they usually list great deals on burners. Today they had an internal Pioneer DVR-106 for just $138.00 (via coupon code "DVR106") That's the exact same drive Apple uses in their computers (aka. SuperDrive) so you know it will work with iTunes. Get it with a black bezel and put it into a cheap firewire enclosure like this one. You'll have yourself a kick ass looking burner that can burn anything (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+-R and DVD+-W) for under $200.

I have a similar setup with my PowerBook except I have the older DRV-105 drive. Works like a charm.

Apfhex · Oct 26, 2003, 02:55 AM

Thanks, that looks good. I suppose since the price of the 106 is so close to the 105 that they also sell, it would be good to go for the 106 (and it supports DVD+R, though I don't really care about that).

I wish I could fix the Combo drive on my PowerBook. It can read DVDs without and problems, so you'd think there would be a way to fix the CD-RW part of the drive. Does it use a separate laser/lens for DVDs and CDs? Could the lens be dirty?

Apfhex · Oct 26, 2003, 05:14 AM

BTW, I ordered the Beige DVR-106 and the MS-501FW Firewire case (Aluminum color version of the linked case, which I think looks pretty good), which came to $200 almost exactly.

Stogieman · Oct 26, 2003, 01:03 PM

Cool, congrats on your purchase. As for the combo drive inside your PowerBook, are you sure it's not a software problem? If the drive can read DVDs the it should be able to read CD-Rs and Audio CDs. I had similar problem with my PowerBook where It could read DVDs and CD-Rs but not Audio CDs. I performed a clean install with Panther and now everything seems to be working again.

Landos Mustache · Oct 26, 2003, 01:35 PM

LaCie's will really work with any Mac OS. They are well made.

taffy · Oct 26, 2003, 06:41 PM

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
LaCie's will really work with any Mac OS. They are well made.

I second that. Their line of peripherals are basically headache-less, it works very well. Their d2 encolsures are quite attractive too.

As well, their tech support (from what I've seen) is very good. No need to fuss around with separate case manufacturer and the drive itself.

c.

Apfhex · 12:22 AM

Originally posted by Stogieman:
Cool, congrats on your purchase. As for the combo drive inside your PowerBook, are you sure it's not a software problem? If the drive can read DVDs the it should be able to read CD-Rs and Audio CDs. I had similar problem with my PowerBook where It could read DVDs and CD-Rs but not Audio CDs. I performed a clean install with Panther and now everything seems to be working again.

Yeah, I tried everything I could with the software before determining it was the hardware.

This problem started to happen at some point through the middle of my time with 10.2, not after installing anything...just came out of nowhere. It's been getting progressively worse since then. The last CD I successfully burned was in late July, using iTunes. The burn completed and the CD plays just fine in my portable CD player but my PowerBook was never able to read it.

I performed a clean install of Panther on Friday, formatting the drive, and resetting the NVRAM, PRAM, and even the PMU! I had hoped Panther would solve the problem. It runs great... but I still can't read CD-R's. I also had problems reading my Panther discs (very lucky that it eventually worked!!), and even now it won't accept my Xcode CD at all.

I tried an Audio CD and it plays just fine, though it took a while for the CD to mount. This problem never really affected audio CD's, though sometimes it would have problems playing certain tracks (I assumed just because the combo drive is a bit picky).