[Chito]

I have a combo drive that I pulled from my G5 when it was brand new. I put it into a firewire enclosure with the thought of using it with my iBook which only has a cdrom. When I try to play a dvd with the combo hooked to my iBook I get the following message:
There was an initialization error
A valid DVD drive could not be found. [-70012]
Now...on a side note the drive is recognized in the system profiler as Apple supported/shipped, and is recognized in iTunes as the drive I would use for burning.
Any ideas why DVD player doesn't see it?
Thanks

[Chito]

hopeful bump....anyone?

[rjenkinson]

apple's DVD player can make use of external DVD drives, but it seems to be looking for an internal DVD drive after it's been launched. in order to play movies on your ibook, you should give VLC a try.

-r.

[Chito]

I'm going to try deleting DVD player pref's and if that doesn't work a fresh Panther install/update this evening with the combo drive plugged in. I tried, for the first time in my life I think, to follow the instructions that came with the enclosure and set the jumper to master. When that didn't work I moved it to cable select and that didn't make any difference. I tried VLC and I forget now what it was doing but it didn't work either. I'll have to recheck VLC if the new system doesn't work. I appreciate your input. I posted this here and on Apple's boards but no one seems to have the silver bullet I'm hoping for. Thanks
Mike

[Chito]

Well a fresh install of Panther and still no luck. Getting the same message. I opened the extensions tab in System Profiler and check this out:
IODVDStorageFamily:

Version: 1.3.1
Last Modified: 11/7/04 7:20 PM
Get Info String: 1.3, Copyright Apple Computer, Inc. 1998-2003
Location: /System/Library/Extensions/IODVDStorageFamily.kext
kext Version: 1.3.1
Loaded: No
Valid: No
Validity Errors: Kext has a kernel dependency prior to version 6.0 and CFBundleVersion does not match executable's MODULE_VERSION
Authentic: Yes
Dependencies: Incomplete
Dependency Errors: com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily: No valid version of this dependency can be found

Any ideas anyone?

BTW...VLC crashes when I try to open a dvd.

[Chito]

Oddly enough, or maybe not, is that the DVD extension on my G5 says the same thing in system profiler, and the G5 is working perfectly. I'm starting to think buying the external enclosure was the worst money I've spent. Everything else works with the exception of DVD player, I imported and burned in iTunes using the external.
Christ on a crutch....all I want to do is play a DVD for potential customers. I should have used that money to buy a portable DVD player. I just figured it would work just as well using my iBook.

[Chito]

Well here ya go....it won't work at all according to Apple. Found this in their support section....finally.

Apple DVD Player requires an internal DVD drive
Apple DVD Player works with the internal factory-installed DVD drive but will not work with external DVD drives.

To view movies on a DVD-Video using Apple DVD Player (Mac OS 9) or DVD Player 3.x (Mac OS X) you must have an internal DVD drive. Licensing restrictions of the DVD decoding technology prevent its use with computers that do not come with an internal DVD drive.

Computers that come with an internal CD-ROM or CD-RW drive and are not able to read DVD discs are restricted from viewing movies on DVD-Video discs using Apple DVD player. A "-70012" alert may appear if you try to play a DVD movie disc with an external player.

So I guess it's back to finding out why VLC crashes everytime I try to open a dvd.