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MrBenn · Aug 30, 2001, 09:19 AM

Hello all,

I recenetly purchased a Formac firewire CDRW (16x10x40, burnproof, bus-powered version) It came with Toast 4.1.1, which I installed, to find that it didn't recognise my new drive.

I spoke to an engineer at the Apple suplier the drive came from, who told me that the drive was faulty and to return it, which I did. When the drive was returned to me I tried again, and got the same results.

I spoke to the engineer again and he told me that Toast 4.1.1 was an old version and that i needed to upgrade because the drive had worked fine for him using Toast5 titanium on OSX (or something like that) I updated Toast to 4.1.3 from the roxio website, Toast still dosn't recognise my drive.

I'm not sure which make of drive is inside my Formac CDRW, or how to find out, but Toast dosn't like it and neither does iTunes. I don't see why I should pay for the latest and greatest version of Toast, surely Formac should supply the relevent software and drivers for the drives they sell!

Does anyone have any clue about this problem?

By the way, iMac DVSE 400mhz, OS9.1 Thanks in advance!

Vader's Robotic Stump · Aug 30, 2001, 11:42 AM

Are you in OSX or OS9?

MrBenn · Aug 30, 2001, 01:53 PM

OK, I dug a little deeper and found out that the Toast extentions are conflicting with my iTunesls extentions. So I disabled the iTunes extentions and now all is well with the world. I suppose I should've tried harder before running to the big boys.

Still, I'd really like to be able to burn a CD from iTunes, mostly because of how cool it looks when you click the 'Burn CD' icon.

I made another extention set with the iTunes extentions enabled and the Toast extentions disabled but iTunes still dosn't recognise the Formac CDRW. Any ideas? Thanks!

MrBenn · Aug 30, 2001, 01:56 PM

OK, I dug a little deeper and found out that the Toast extentions are conflicting with my iTunes extentions. So I disabled the iTunes extentions and now all is well with the world. I suppose I should've tried harder before running to the big boys.

Still, I'd really like to be able to burn a CD from iTunes, mostly because of how cool it looks when you click the 'Burn CD' icon.

I made another extention set with the iTunes extentions enabled and the Toast extentions disabled but iTunes still dosn't recognise the Formac CDRW. Any ideas? Thanks!

MrBenn · Aug 30, 2001, 01:59 PM

OK, I dug a little deeper and found out that the Toast extentions are conflicting with my iTunes extentions. So I disabled the iTunes extentions and now all is well with the world. I suppose I should've tried harder before running to the big boys.

Still, I'd really like to be able to burn a CD from iTunes, mostly because of how cool it looks when you click the 'Burn CD' icon.

I made another extention set with the iTunes extentions enabled and the Toast extentions disabled but iTunes still dosn't recognise the Formac CDRW. Any ideas? Thanks!

MrBenn · Aug 30, 2001, 02:02 PM

ummm, sorry about the triple post :o my dial up connection seems to be really slow today.

Vader's Robotic Stump · Aug 30, 2001, 04:11 PM

Originally posted by MrBenn:

OK, I dug a little deeper and found out that the Toast extentions are conflicting with my iTunesls extentions.

Yes I believe that that is mentioned about 10 times in the iTunes and Toast read me's and installers.

Make sure ONLY the toast extensions are on and not the Firewire Authoring support and it should work in iTunes.

MrBenn · Aug 30, 2001, 05:30 PM

You mean you're actually supposed to READ those?

Vader's Robotic Stump · Aug 30, 2001, 06:53 PM

Originally posted by MrBenn:
You mean you're actually supposed to READ those?

It is usually a good place to look when things don�t work

MrBenn · Aug 31, 2001, 04:33 AM

I've got the Firewire Authoring extentions disabled and the Toast extentions enabled but iTunes still dosn't see my CDRW. Thanks for all your advice Vader.

milhaus · Aug 31, 2001, 07:08 AM

Originally posted by MrBenn:
I've got the Firewire Authoring extentions disabled and the Toast extentions enabled but iTunes still dosn't see my CDRW. Thanks for all your advice Vader.

Well, that'd be your problem. Make sure that you have two extension sets - one for Toast with DiscBurner and all Authoring Support extensions disabled - the other with DiscBurner and AS enabled.
iTunes breaks Toast; Toast does not break iTunes.
The final possibility is that the Formac mechnaism is not one supported by iTunes.

pobodysnerfect · Aug 31, 2001, 12:25 PM

hmmm, strange. I have the same exact Formac drive as you, and both Toast Titanium 5.0 and iTunes 1.1.1 work perfectly with it. I have made many cd's with each and never had any problems using the same extension set.

Sometimes what I have found is that I will go into iTunes and it won't find my drive, so what I do is turn the drive off, unplug the firewire connection, plug it back in, turn it back on and then it will see it. Don't know if this is a drive issue or a firewire port issue, but it works. Oh btw I am on a Ti book so that may make some difference, but try that and hopefully it may work for you...

Aug 31, 2001, 02:16 PM

i believe his problem is the "bus-power"... xlr8yourmac and formac both strongly recommend using the optional power adapter for 16x and up... it's just insane to expect firewire bus-power to drive the full-size cd-rw at full speed

SteveJobs · Aug 31, 2001, 03:12 PM

A friend of mine is thinking about buying this burner, he has an iMac. Is the power adapter optional to buy or is it included in the package?

Your iTunes/toast problems should be solved in winter with final versions of iTunes and Toast 5 for OS X. ...

MrBenn · Aug 31, 2001, 06:28 PM

The Formac Firewire drive IS supplied with a power adapter for a mains power supply.

BUT, Formac advertise 'Bus Powered' as being a big plus point of this drive. Toast recognises the drive, and can write to the drive without any problems (with only the firewire connection), so, surely the power supply isn't the reason why iTunes dosn't see the drive?

pobodysnerfect · Aug 31, 2001, 06:58 PM

Originally posted by <pazuzu>:
i believe his problem is the "bus-power"... xlr8yourmac and formac both strongly recommend using the optional power adapter for 16x and up... it's just insane to expect firewire bus-power to drive the full-size cd-rw at full speed

Don't think so. I have burned many cd's with my Ti book using only the firewire bus for power, burning at 16x with no problems.