PowerMac G5 does not read recently burned DVDs

I'm not sure you have the same problems as the original posting (and the same problem as others including myself). The problem is not that the drive ejects commercial DVDs, that's actually the one thing that it does seem to do. Can you burn DVDs with the drive? Will it mount DVDs that it burns?

The exact problems is that the G5 allows a CD or DVD to burn, and will even display the finished (burned and verified) disk in the finder. When ejected and reinserted in the drive it attempts are made to read the disk, which appear to fail, and the disk is finally ejected by the machine. Repeated attempts result in the same failure. Cleaning the drive (or disk) has no effect. However, inserting a commercially recorded DVD or CD will mount. This problem occurs regardless of the method of burning (Finder, Disk Utility or Toast). The burned disk is successful, because it can be verified on another machine (Powerbooks, Desktops or even Windows machines). Disks burned on any other machine result in the same failure as well. So the problem is not with the burning, it's the drives inability to read its own burned DVDs.

OK, I finally got a chance to test this more. I since have upgraded to 10.4.11 from 10.4.10, repaired permissions and reset PRAM - no improvement.

I can burn a DVD, but it will not mount following the burn on my G5. I CAN read the same DVD just burned on my G5 on my G4 Laptop also running 10.4.11.

In addition, my G5 will not mount ANY commercial DVDs either. (CDs still work)

Also have another question.

The OS CD& DVD control panel has settings for what to do...

"When you insert a blank DVD:"
"When you insert a video DVD:"

but I do not see any setting on what to do if you insert a Commercial Data DVD? What criteria does it use (apparently none right now)?

petrius

i have the dual 2.5 g5 power mac
i am going to replace my drive

is the pioneer 112D at sata drive or ide?

thanks

phil

My guess will de ide, not quite sure. Here's the link where to buy it for 35 bucks and specifications:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Pioneer/DVR112DBK/

I've had it for some time now and it works like a charm. I don't understand why some people in this thread are going through so much trouble when replacing the unit is extremely cheap and easy.
Good luck Phillip

I just ordered one of these - hope that it is a hardware problem? We'll know soon.

There is a hardware problem with the drive as already determined. No OS upgrade seems to have any effect. As well as any permission repairs or PRAM resetting. So Choreo it sounds like you have a very similar issue as many others despite having a different drive. Except for the fact that you cannot read commercial DVDs (like mine can) it still has the ability to burn, but not read issue. Maybe there is something with the hardware that can be considered mutual to both drives.

As for your question regarding the CD & DVD control panel settings, they are merely for blank CDs and DVDs. There is no general setting to determine how commercial or previously burned CDs and DVDs are handled. The preferences for that are with individual applications. Such as Apple's DVD Player is set to handle DVDs that conform to the DVD-Video specification (unless you've installed some other program to handle the playing of those DVDs). If the DVD will not mount at all that is, most likely a hardware issue instead of software. However I have discovered some issues with software that may cause a DVD to fail to mount (and play), but that seems pretty rare, and generally simply requires a restart of the machine.

Sounds good.

Some of us on this thread have already purchased new DVD burners and readers. I spent the money on a new one, but I still think that if there is some consistency in drive failures that these should be replaced. Again, I don't think that is too much to ask and I don't think that I should give up.

Before this thread even started I purchased an external Sony DL burner that works wonderfully except for the fact that you cannot burn from the finder, nor can you boot the machine from a install DVD or TechTool DVD due to the fact that the USB interface is unable to support external drives as boot devices.

If someone is happy with their decision to purchase a replacement drive and never think about it again, that's fine, please don't berate those for their decisions to pursue the replacement of these faulty drives. I really don't find the effort trouble at all. Personally I want the original drive replaced since mine never seemed to work right from day 1.

I agree with you - there appears to be a problem that SHOULD be fixed IMO. Unfortunately, I am self-employed and the fix is cheap compared to what I am losing in time/business.

The real kicker is that I never inserted more than two Commercial DVD movies into this device and only burned maybe 5 DVDs with it total. I inserted and copied maybe 15 Commercial Data DVDs to my hard drive - and that was it since day one.

I have burned/read maybe 125 CDs, but that part still works.

New Pioneer Drive just came in from OWC. I installed it and now my DVDs mount instantly.

Thanks for the great lead!!! Cheap fix to a nagging problem.

I also have a PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-106D firmware A606, and I have had this problem for longer then I remember, so I finally went looking for help. I think I will buy a new drive. It would be nice, as others have suggested, that someone else buy one for us, but I figure after almost 4 years of use $40 is not a pricey upgrade (compared with $150 I paid for a bigger HD). Thanks to Petrus01 for the hardware advice, I will start with that.

pjmnc, that's what I think. The DVD burner is one of the cheapest components of a computer and after 3-4 years of use it's only reasonable to think that it may fail. Hey, but it's only me talking out loud.

I had similar issues with a replacement (Optiarc which is Sony / NEC). Refreshing the OS by installing the standalone version of the latest OSX update, 10.5.1 in my case, solved the problem. The drive does read all media again after this OS refresh.
Seems that overtime the DVD drivers may get problematic, so a refresh can restore full functionality. Seems that Sony / Nec based writers are particularly sensitive to this driver issue. Not sure whether this is true for the Pioneer drives, never had problems with a Pioneer drive.