Can't burn CDs - "burner in use by another application"
I'm trying to burn a music CD using iTunes on my PowerBook G4. Every time I try to burn, a warning box pops up saying "The burner is in use by another application." There are no other applications running!
I have restarted the computer. I also restarted in Safe Mode (by pressing the shift key at start up), then rebooted after that. I updated to the latest versions of the OS (10.4.11) and iTunes (8.0.1), and I still get the same error message.
Any ideas about what is causing this and how to fix it?
Thanks for the leads. PowerMedic is out of stock of all their internal drives that would work in my PB. It looks like OWC will be getting some of my money.
That's a good point about not being able to boot from a USB drive. I do daily (actually, nightly) back-ups using SuperDuper! to an external hard drive via USB. But the hard drive also has a FireWire interface. If I ever had to do a recovery, could I just plug a USB cable into the external drive and boot up? (I suppose I could answer my own question just by trying that.)
Since your question is posted in the PowerBook G4 15" forum I am assuming that you are talking about a PowerBook G4 and not a MacBook Pro.
If I ever had to do a recovery, could I just plug a USB cable into the external drive and boot up?
While you can boot an Intel Mac from USB, a PowerPC Mac cannot be booted from a USB device. Since your drive is dual boot, any bootable clone you make with SuperDuper will boot your computer via Firewire.
Yes - the computer in question is a PB G4 Titanium with a PowerPC processor - so if I ever need to do a recovery, I'll scrounge around and find a FireWire cable and boot up from the drive that SuperDuper is backing up to.
BTW, OWC just received about $100 from me. Boy I hope that solves this problem!
Thanks again (to everybody who participated in this thread) for all your comments, suggestions, etc.
Yes - I'm using a WD MyBook external drive to store music and videos. I plan to set up my old PB G4 Titanium as a music server to my home theater system.
Have a look at the thread linked below. Some other users have had a similar issue to yours. I've included a second thread as well. Although I am not certain it applies to your situation it may still be useful information. Please keep us posted on your progress.
Yikes! That other thread is closed - I can't post to it. I'll post my comment/question here:
Based on all the threads that I have read, and all the different things that I have tried to fix the problem of iTunes refusing to burn CDs my PB G4, I have come to the following conclusions:
If your CD/DVD drive is getting a bit old and tired, and if you connect a Western Digital MyBook to your Mac, then that could be the straw that breaks the camel's back - iTunes stops being able to burn CDs.
I tried ALL of the software fixes mentioned in several threads, and none of them solved the problem for me. Finally, I bought a new replacement CD/DVD SuperDrive and installed it today, and iTunes was able to burn CDs again. (Woohooo!)
However, I have a new problem.
To do my first test burn of a CD, I set iTunes preferences to use the iTunes music folder on my internal hard drive. (The test burn worked fine.)
Then I changed iTunes preferences to use the (much larger) iTunes music folder on the Western Digital external drive (the MyBook). I had been using the iTunes music folder on this external hard drive for a few months prior to this problem starting.
But (problem description here): iTunes (vers 8.0.1) shows an empty music library. It shows nothing.
I have confirmed that I have set iTunes preferences to use this path to the iTunes music library:
MyBook:iTunes:iTunes Music:
I rebooted the Mac and restarted iTunes. I dragged the iTunes music folder on the internal hard drive to the trash, then reconfirmed the directory path to the iTunes music folder on the external drive, then rebooted the Mac again - and iTunes will launch, but it shows an empty music library.
I looked at the iTunes music folder on the MyBook drive and confirmed that it has hundreds of albums and thousands of songs in it.
This is on a PowerBook G4 Titanium running 10.4.11.
Well this may sound kinda stupid but I didn't notice a user name included in the path to your iTunes folder. Was this library created under the same account you've logged in as? If not have you enabled sharing for this account under Preferences in iTunes?
I only have one user account on this computer. And the external hard drive showed my full music library before I replaced the SuperDrive (and I had not turned on sharing at that time).
Nonetheless, I turned on sharing and the library did not appear in iTunes. Then I rebooted the computer and relaunched iTunes, and the music library is still empty.
Using the finder, I went to the music folder on the external drive and double-clicked on one of the song files to force it to play. I hoped that would break the logjam. When I double-clicked on the music file, iTunes launched and the song started playing - and that one, single, solitary song now appears in my iTunes music library. I rebooted again, and that one song is still the only song appearing in the library. ???????
