I just picked up a super drive from a second hand store. Looks to be in good shape.
However I’ve plugged it into both my older MBP, mid 2009 and 2012. I hear the drive mechanism chirp as soon as it’s plugged in. But both the MBP immediately say it’s not compatible. Trying to insert a disc it doesn’t respond either.
Is the drive just defective?
6x6 wrote:
You need to disable the internal optical drive for the SuperDrive to be recognized. Here is an article that shows how to do it: How To Get An External DVD Drive To Work With a Mac Laptop.
FYI, the NVRAM option mentioned in that article probably will not work on an Apple Silicon Mac and may even cause the M-Series Mac to be unable to boot normally. The information in that article is probably fine for an Intel Mac.
6x6 wrote:
You need to disable the internal optical drive for the SuperDrive to be recognized. Here is an article that shows how to do it: How To Get An External DVD Drive To Work With a Mac Laptop.
FYI, the NVRAM option mentioned in that article probably will not work on an Apple Silicon Mac and may even cause the M-Series Mac to be unable to boot normally. The information in that article is probably fine for an Intel Mac.
Jason_Lsn wrote:
On apples site it says macs 2008 or newer.
There are at least two different models of the Super Drive available. I know when we received the newer one from Apple, there was a note in the box which mentioned it was not compatible with certain Macs. That was some years ago (probably 2014) so I don't recall exactly what the note said.
I know you must connect the Super Drive directly to the computer without any adapters. For the USB-C Macs you can use an Apple USB-C to USB-A Adapter, but otherwise I have no clues.
You need to disable the internal optical drive for the SuperDrive to be recognized. Here is an article that shows how to do it: How To Get An External DVD Drive To Work With a Mac Laptop.
I recall seeing some Apple documentation years ago about some Super Drives only being compatible with certain Apple products. I have no idea which Super Drive is compatible with which Macs....I don't recall ever seeing such a document. I do know that you must connect the Super Drive directly to the Mac.
You should be able to use any third party external USB DVD drive. There is no guarantee the Super Drive you purchased even works even if connected to a compatible Mac.
Well I went back to the store since they had 4 of them. None worked. So I imagine it’s a comparability issue.
my mid 2009 is still my workhorse laptop with upgraded memory, SSD and new battery. Does all I need it to. The optical drive finally quit and I figured an Apple SuperDrive would be the easy plug and play fix.
On apples site it says macs 2008 or newer.
Thanks for the link. Unfortunately I’m still sporting el cap on my mid 2009 and the process to ignore the built in drive in recovery mode looks too risky for my skill level. I’d rather just get a different external DVD drive.
superdrive on older MBP
