external optical drives not working on USB 3.1
I recently purchased 3 Verbatim Slimline CD/DVD Writers.
Now here’s the problem. I have a MacBook Pro M2 (2023 running Ventura 13.2.1) and the laptop won’t recognize the drives. Power gets to the drive, it blinks, I can open/close it, and I can see it in the System Report settings under the USB Device Bus Tree at USB 3.1. But the drive doesn’t get recognized and no disc ever spins up. I tried all the ports, different cables, Apple cables, third party cables, different USB-A to USB-C adapters Apple and third party, even different drives, nothing.
I also tried it on a 2020 Mac Mini M1 running Monterey 12.5. SAME EXACT problem with the USB-C 3.1 ports but when I try the 3.0 USB-A port, boom, it works flawlessly.
So I dunno what to do. The drives are advertised as USB 3.2 Gen 1. Am I just outta luck? Is there anyway to downgrade my MacBooks USB 3.1 ports so they only run at 3.0?