LG GGW-H20L Blue Ray

That gets the drive in the case, but doesn't deal with the fact that the drive itself is SATA and Apple provides you with a standard ATA cable for optical drives.

Getting access to the hidden onboard SATA connectors is a huge PITA.

G_Whiz wrote:
There are to eSATA ports (labeled: ODD Port) on the motherboard... the problem is the front of the disc tray does not detach like traditional cd/dvd drives.

Yes there are, but in order to get to them you have to remove the fan assembly and CPU heatsink which is a gigantic pain. You will need a right-angle SATA connector to fit the SATA cable underneath the fan assembly, as well as a MOLEX-to-SATA power adapter as the Mac Pro only provides MOLEX power connectors and the drive only uses SATA.

Removing the front of the disc tray is the easiest part and least of your worries.

For more information to installing the GGW-H20L in a Mac Pro, view these links:

http://www.newertech.com/Static/articles/articlemacensteineSATA.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MacProHD_in_optical_drive_bay/MacPro_HD_inOpticalBay.html
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4916867&postcount=7
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4741378&postcount=13

Also be advised that while the drive is capable of reading BD discs (commercial or BD-R), it has been noted by many that writing to the discs is not possible through SATA mode. So if you're planning to use the drive as a burner, you need to put it in a USB2.0 or Firewire external enclosure, providing you can even find a 5 1/2" SATA -> Firewire optical enclosure on the market. The entire process is an enormous hassle, and Apple is really lagging on getting workable BD-R to the masses.

Hey Ya'll,

SATA greetings from Tennessee!.

Your internal IDE to SATA problems can be solved with a little ol $30 device found at: http://www.cooldrives.com/sahadradtoid.html . I have a G5 Quad, running X 4.11.
The adaptor/bridge worked fine. I still ran into some probs with the drive's disk tray and the silver hatch on the front of the G5. So I went back to cooldrives.com and got the eSATA 5.25" optical enclosure, (see http://www.cooldrives.com/essibay5cdop.html). Now, I have a cool eSATA external burner which is faster than the chip set found in the first ATA (IDE or PATA) > SATA adaptor.

Best to you and yours! God bless ya'll...

JC

I have an LG GGW H20L in my Mac Pro.

It is connected to the motherboard SATA ports, which I managed to do without removing any components, just the adjacent screw to the fan assembly, which allows the fan assembly to move about .1 inch away from the motherboard to get the connector on.

I used the supplied power supply adapter.

There is a beta version of Toast 9 which works fully with the drive.

The latest firmware is YL03, but a lot of people (Toast forum) have reported trouble with this, and gone back to YL02.

Finder burn works fine with YL02 but not YL03.

EDIT.....just noticed this thread is three months old! Oh well maybe the info will help someone.

Message was edited by: Mike Boreham

It is not that hard to take a Mac Pro apart to hook up the on board Sata connectors. I can post some pictures if you'd like. I did it. There were a few tricky parts, but nothing terrible. If you are patient, you can figure it out yourself and do the whole job in an hour. With instructions, you can do the whole job in 15 minutes or less.

Also, I think you can use a ata to sata conversion board to make this work with the exiting wiring. I've seen some cheap adapter on eBay that might not fit, and elsewhere, I've seen one expensive one that I know will fit.

I have installed a LG GGW-H20L in my Mac Pro 3.0Ghz. It's not easy, I had to remove the fan to access the sata ports on the motherboard. I also had to buy a right angled sata cable (cost £5.99 from Maplins) as the provided sata cable sticks out too much from the motherboard. It's a tight fit as the 45cm sata cable is only just long enough, if only they made 50cm ones!

I have bootcamp installed with vista running. When I opened it up in Vista I installed all the necessary applications that come on the LG disc. They give you Cyberlink HD suite, which includes PowerDVD, PowerProducer, Power2Go, Instant Burn, Power Back Up and BD Advisor. I didn't use any of these programs but opening in Vista means the LG firmware is automatically downloaded and installed, although I still can't see it as an optical drive in device manager. However, once I boot up in Mac OS 10.4.11 Toast Titanium 8 registers the drive and will happily burn Blu-Ray discs. I have burnt BD-R and BD-RE without any problems.

The GGW-H20L says its not Mac supported. But works fine, installs a bit tricky but not hard, but for Blu-Ray burning for less than £150 (from dabs.com) its definitely worth the hassle.

As I see it there are three choices to get some functionality out of
the LG GGW-H20L Blu Ray drive in a Mac Pro Desktop.

1. External case and USB connection. In this case can the USB support
the highest possible output resolutions that the drive is capable of?
(Can anyone recommend an external case that facilitates all drive functions.)

2. Connect to one of the two ODD SATA connections on the mother board using right
angle connector and approx 60cm cable. But it will be difficult and involve
removing fan (and power supply?).

See description and image of ODD SATA pins here;
http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2008/03/updated_march_2008_workingwi.html

3. Get a SATA to IDE adapter circuit board. A couple of choices are available

A. Manhattan 170000 http://www.computercablesource.com/sata-adapter-adapt-your-serial-ata-drive-to-a -ide-40-pin-controller-manhattan-170000-internal-use-1383.html
See description here.
http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2008/03/updated_march_2008_workingwi.html

B. Cooldrive adapter
http://www.cooldrives.com/sahadradtoid.html
See description of how to here.
http://www.echenique.com/2008/06/mac-pro-sata-blu-ray-howto.html


But apparently someone using the Cooldrive adapter (and others) said:

Please keep in mind that Blu-Ray/HD-DVD playback is not
supported in any Mac OS yet (the jury is still out on Snow
Leopard) so you won't be able to play commercial discs. You
will be able to burn BD discs for playback on set top players
and for data storage. Roxio Toast Titanium 9 offers BD support
via an optional plugin.

Is this the same with all three possible solutions? i.e No matter
what you do you cannot ever play commercial Blu-Ray discs?
I am using 10.5.4 will any solution work with this OS?

Message was edited by: blueskys

Also see http://www.cooldrives.com/sahadradtoid.html
for more info.

Really hope someone can advise whether there is a system that
allows for all functionality of the drive to be available.

I want to get the max resolution for use with a 30 inch monitor.
I also want to write Blu-Ray files for data storage.

Hi there. I wrote the blog article you quoted. The Cooldrives adapter works great and you do get the data storage capacity of BD. However, Apple's DVD player will not decode the format. The only way to play commercial BD/HD-DVD movie discs is to use Boot Camp (Parallels/Fusion video drivers are not HDCP enabled). Until Apple updates their DVD player or someone else releases a BD/HD-DVD player app for OS X, there is no Blu-Ray movie love in the Mac.

Will the 'movie' player that comes with Toast 9 play back either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD commercial or home made Hi-Def movies on Mac OS X? ie. does the 'plugin' by Toast support such playback on the Mac OS side. What about on the Boot-Camp side?

Are the installation issues for this particular drive resolved with the latest (>2008 Mac Pros) or does one still have to buy 'all' the adapters to plug it into the 2nd drive slot of the 2008 Mac Pros?

Thank you!

I installed the LG drive using the internal SATA connection on the logic board. The drive is recognized and works well using the finder to burn (data discs, images...).

Unfortunately Toast freezes whenever I put a BD-R/BD-RE in the drive, DVD-Rs are OK. At the same time Encore CS3 won't start anymore, it freezes at "Come for Blu-Ray, stay for Flash".

Does anyone have any ideas? I ordered a SATA/IDE bridge, to see if that will work better. I don't wanna spend a lot of money on an external case if that doesn't work better...

Thanks!

Just wanted to let you know guys. I resolved the BD problem by installing the drive using a IDE/SATA bridge. It perfectly burnt a BD-RE in Encore CS3. So for everyone buying that awesomely cheap LG drive and installing it in a Mac Pro: Don't use the internal SATA, use an IDE/SATA bridge.

Hope it'll help you!

Message was edited by: Gian-Andrea Attenhofer

can you link me to the bridge that you bough.

ive got it working just fine using SATA cable and what not, but i want it to work in vista using boot camp so i can watch blu-ray movies on my screen here at the office.

I just want to buy what you had snice it works

can you boot into vista and find the drive is recognized?

Hello Gian-Andrea
I have the some solution for install the LG Blue Ray (by the IDE/SATA adapter) but there is a problem with the ide cable that is short to connect the second drive.
Do You have a solutions?
..the first approach ... use the cable whith female and male connections....but is not easy to find it...
Thanks

I just installed the LG GGW H20l today in my 2007 Mac Pro. Everything works, burning, reading and all. How did I do it? Quite simple, cool and sexy neat.
1. Get an Iogear SATA PCI Express card with at least one internal SATA connector. Pop it into one of the PCIe slots. Load the drivers.
2. Connect your LG in the secondary optical drive bay (of-course after removing the face plate).
3. The drive comes with a Molex to PCie power cable for powering up the Blu-ray drive.
4. Remove the first Hard Disk Drives drive in slot one.
5. Get a 36" SATA cable. Snake it through the MAC's power cables hole (in the inside left corner of the optical drive compartment) and out to the SATA PCIe card.
6. Install the LG firmware update software and any other Cyberlink software that pleases your heart. Watch the drive come to life in windows.
7. In Mac OSX make sure you also install the drivers for the SATA PCIe Card on the iogear instal disk. I was able to play a moveie in Leopard. Since I mainly use use this MAC in Vista environment I did no test any other functionality in Leopard.