DVD-ROM on Lombard Powerbook G3

Pan,

These are the important parts to using DVDs on a Lombard:

1. If you want ONLY the option to read data DVDs, a DVD-ROM drive is all that is necessary.

2. If you want to watch DVD movies, you will need the DVD-ROM drive, hardware-enabled DVD decoding, and Apple DVD Player v1.3 for MacOS 8.6 > 9.2.2.

3. Apple does not support DVD Player in any version of OSX; you must boot to MacOS 8.6 > 9.2.2 to watch movies.

4. The Lombard with the 400MHz CPU came with both the DVD-ROM drive and the built-in hardware DVD decoder on the logic board. If your Lombard was bought used, it may have been special ordered with DVD but the DVD-ROM drive swapped for a CD-ROM by the former owners. Follow the steps in this article to see if you have the DVD decoder:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58337

5. If you do not have the built-in decoder, you must use a decoder PC card like the one this company offers:
http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&ProductCode=DVDMPG2&CategoryCode=

Jpl's answer removes some uncertainty for my (different) situation. (At least, as I thought, I have DVD decoding capability).

In short, how do I get the following platform to play DVDs, not just read data DVDs: 400 Lombard "bronze" with "400/ ... /DVD" on the bottom of the case, SuperDrive from WegenerMedia (the 400 came from the church rummage sale with a CD drive) which is supposed to be CD or DVD, R or W, + or -, iDVD 3 installed, no card slot cards (yet).

So--I have a 400 Lombard "bronze" DVD-capable -- but with 10.3, not 8.x or 9.x . As I thought, "DVD Player" is not installed (contrary to some vendors' claims of what "should" be). The only other possibility I guessed was iDVD from some iLife bundle. I got iLife 3, which should work according to one vendor. Clicking on iDVD 3 at this point always gets the error message that "required hardware" is nowhere to be found. Friend William's 233 Wall Street, with a DVD-Video card "in lower slot" (back, left side), handles DVDs. But has 8.x or 9.x. OWC tells me they have "no hardware that will address my issue".

I have no problem with the above drive with CDs or doing directories of DVDs, as if it were data. I cannot find something that will play the movies of crossing the Atlantic, etc that friends sent. I am not sure I don't need to identify whether the friends sent double-layer or single layer DVDs. I suspect the old critters won't play newer CDs. Comments?

G3:400 Lombard bronze, 233 Wall Street, 333 iMac Mac OS X (10.3) 333 10.3.x; 233 still 9.2.2; 400 10.3.x

bombadil,

As I mentioned in my reply to Pan, Apple does not support DVD Player in any version of OSX on the Wallstreet and Lombard; you must boot to MacOS 8.6 > 9.2.2 to watch movies.

If you would like to have excellent, full-screen playback of DVDs, you will have to install a pre-OSX OS; the Lombard supports OS 8.6 as a minimum.

DVD Player was not installed on your Lombard because it is unsupported. Your superdrive from Wegener Media will work just fine since you have the built-in DVD decoder.

Thanks jpl; I saw that question & response (DVD Player unsupported in OS X) after posting . Now I need to research installing 9.x w/o uninstalling OS X. I've seen mention of this.

At least I now have answers on peculiarities of playing DVDs. My Wall Street may have, may have had, DVD capability all along. It's been so long since turning it on I'd forgotten it.

Thanks again. You have a lot of (good) responses on Apple Discussions.

bombadil,

You can quite easily install 9.x without disturbing your OSX:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106294

There is one unanswered question, however, and that is if the MacOS 9 HD driver is installed. Open your System Profiler > Hardware > ATA and see if it reports this:

OS9 Drivers: Yes

If missing, you will be unable to boot to MacOS 8.6 > 9.2.2 although this OS will run as "Classic" while booted to 10.x. Apple says you will have to reformat the HD to install the OS 9 HD driver since installing OSX apparently does not leave enough room to install this HD driver.

OS 9 drivers installed: Yes! Thank you!

Now, if this is the type q'n allowed on the list: Can you point me to a vendor who sells 9.x, esp 9.2.2 rather than just 9.2? OWC has 9.2 but they're "grey OEM" CDs, not anything from Apple, and other sites warn against "grey OEM CDs". OWC pictures an Apple CD--white, large orange "9"--but then points out they're actually selling "grey OEM" 's. OWC is the only clear 9.2.anything vendor I've found.

Although my main purpose is to get working DVD playing capability, and don't expect to see much 9.x use. Except that the older OS actually has some capabilities 10.x does not retain.

BTW, I have had the original 6GB replaced with a 40GB (the Mac guru at CompUSA recommended against larger than 40GB for power & heat considerations. In the iMac 333 desktop I put 3.5" 80GB; maybe put the remaining 60GB 2.5" in the Wall Street. Wall Street says "CD" on the bottom, but not "DVD").

Hmm--I have the old HD out of the 400 "bronze", which should have 9.2.x on it--maybe some way, if I can't get 9.2.2 back on the "bronze."

I may be slowly tracking down the solution to my problem, esp with your help.

Thanks in advance,
Doug L. / tux(is)nottux

Doug,

I would not be concerned using the OS 9.1 CD from OWC. It is in fact an Apple OEM iMac CD shipped with new iMacs; machine-specific CDs that ship with new computers will always have the name of the computer on it and be a different color. OWC has listed the machines that this CD will support; if I needed OS 9.1, I would not hesitate to buy it. OWC is an excellent company and does not make false claims. The claims that machine-specific CDs will not work on other computers is only partially true...you have to have the correct CD. You will want to update to OS 9.2.2 using Apple's free updates after installing 9.1.

If you wish to buy a MacOS 9.2.1 CD, here is a source:
http://www.applerescue.com/

If you are sure the old "bronze" HD works and has 9.2.1 on it, you have a couple of choices:

- Buy this inexpensive adapter and connect the bare HD to the USB port of your Lombard, then just drag-copy the System Folder from the external HD to the internal HD icon...the System Folder will be properly placed at the root level of the HD. (You cannot drag-copy OSX, only pre-OSX systems.)
http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_Specials.cfm?ID=9011&Item=OWCUSB2PATA

- Buy an inexpensive USB 2.5" HD enclosure, place the HD in it, and perform the same procedure. You can continue to use it as a backup device. If in fact you want a backup HD, I would recommend FireWire, not USB, since the USB port on the Lombard is only the slow USB 1.1 speed. You can add FireWire to the Lombard via a FireWire PC card, but under no circumstances can you boot the Lombard to a USB device or through a FireWire PC card.

Message was edited by: jpl

Thanks so much! An independent evaluation of OWC and other valuable information. I'm going to be confident, I hope not overconfident, and mark this "solved" if I get to do that with a thread that started with someone else's query. The USB adapter sounds like a good alternative, as it will revive my old 6GB disk, however far one goes with such.

Doug L. 37830

Dear jpl,
I was afraid this was in the cards. Perhaps I can get a few minutes further of your time.

I bought, then assembled according to instruction, the enclosure for the old 6GB HD (see my & your two previous posts). The 400 Lombard showed no awareness of it. Some background below, some question(s) below.

I got the enclosure (OWCMOGTFWU2 I believe, Mercury on the Go Firewire/USB), assembled it according to the instructions on the OWC site (tho some parts seem slightly out of date), plugged the short USB cable in the assembled drive & the back of the 400, and powered up. The blue "on" light on the external drive came on--but neither the desktop nor About this Mac > More info > ... > USB showed any awareness of it. The HD (external) would make a couple audible clunks or clicks when it came on.

Firewire did even worse: I plugged in the card (OWCPCMCIAFWP2 or some such) I got in the same shipment, plugged the two above items together, and powered up. This time the blue "on" light on the external drive did not even come on.

In one shutdown I did get interrupted by a "you need to reboot your computer" box that I'd never gotten before. I hoped that was a sign the 400 had sensed something and that on reboot it would see the external drive, but that was not the case.

I skipped the final step of assembly instructions, which was "format drive". I don't want to format/erase, but use the contents of the old drive. And, the OWC on-line person said "then you just skip that step".

In both cases the power selector was to the left. OWC's instructions seem a little behind reality at this point, but they seem to say "left" for bus & no AC.

Putting the old HD on the PCB (controller & port interface card?) did not (seem to) get that thunk one often gets seating pins in a connector. It barely could get into the available space to begin with. I did push hard once I got the HD in and it seemed to go no further, and the enclosure did fit around it.

For that matter, "Assembly Instructions" in Step 1, Unpacking, say I should get in the initial package an AC Adaptor and a FireWire cable; no mention of USB. In reality, I got a USB and a FW cable, no AC Adaptor.

Question: How can one have a filesystem from one OS (OS 9) functioning under another (OS X)? As I remember your instructions said copy & paste from the old 9 disk to the main OS X HD. Although it should be doable, so, are the two FS's the same?

Further question: Copy & Paste of "System" from the OS 9 disk to the main HD (OS X): why does that not fail, either by erasing the OS X "System" or refusing to write the OS 9 "System" unless you approve (and thus maybe overwrite an OS X "System")? Some of this is difficult when you can't see half of what you need.

Details: 400 Lombard "bronze" keyboard, 512MB lately but top 256MB removed so as to be able to install Panther, 40GB w/ original 6GB made external (again, not yet working), ethernet & dialup ports known to work, PCMCIA/Cardbus plugs in but not clear on whether working (OWC site says is for Mac as well as other, but About This Mac > More Info > ... > Firewire gets "No information", all docs & labels that came on or with the card require Win/PC w/ no mention of Macs, but OWC site clearly states "for Mac 8.6 & up", & other). About as much as I can think of. I always run on AC Adaptor (cannot in fact make it clearly operate on battery, but other discussion threads may answer this). DVD module works (mostly).

Thanks in advance, Doug L.

G3:400 Lombard bronze, 233 Wall Street, 333 iMac Mac OS X (10.3) 333 10.3; 233 still 9.2.2; 400 10.3

G3:400 Lombard bronze, 233 Wall Street, 333 iMac Mac OS X (10.3) 333 10.3.x; 233 still 9.2.2; 400 10.3.x

Doug,

Sorry for the slow reply but I have been fighting the flu. And I guess you have been fighting with technology...

Regarding USB: Some powerbooks do not supply sufficient bus power to run a 2.5" HD and I believe that is the case with your Lombard. Incredibly, this has also been the case with some late model powerbooks. I have the same OWC FW/USB enclosure housing a 3(?) year old HD and it simply will not work when connected to the USB ports on my 2002 iBook; the bus power from the iBook is insufficient. However, the same drive works just fine when connected to my FireWire port. Use of the enclosure's power adapter solves any problems with the USB connection. If this is your issue, a power adapter is the answer.

Regarding FireWire: When using a FireWire PC card, a power adapter is mandatory since these cards provide very little bus power; this also applies to USB PC cards.

So it appears that a power adapter is probably the solution to your problems. Looking at the OWC web page for the enclosure, it appears a power adapter is no longer included so you will have to order one.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MOTGFWU2/

MacOS 9 and MacOS X are fully compatible; 9.x can run independently of OSX or in Classic mode. When you drag-copy 9.x to your internal HD, you can immediately restart to 9.x if you wish. When you are booted to 10.x and then want to start Classic from the System Preferences, OSX will note that 9.x is now present and ask permission to update 9.x; it will add three files to the 9.x System Folder...Classic, Classic Support, and Classic Support UI.

When you click open the HD icon on your powerbook after adding 9.x, you will see this list:

Applications
Applications (Mac OS 9)
Desktop Folder
Library
System
System Folder
Users

There will be no overwriting of any files when you drag-copy the System Folder to the internal HD...this is just the way OSX was designed to work with 9.x. (Sorry my explanation is so simplistic.)

Thank you very much; this looks promising. Please don't worry about "simplistic". Your explanations are at a good level. Consider I "do computers" eight hours a day and can stand some simple explanations off the job. Sounds like you can stand time off the job to recover; best of luck.

Doug L.

jpl: What experience do you have of the following, which seems to have started since all the above (make old HD external, hook up, xfer System 9 to main HD, run Classic, try to run DVD player): any restart or even boot gets the initial system sound, then ... nothing--blank/black screen, never comes back. Only a poke or two at the reset button gets it to respond. Every time. Even just trying to come up then restart, w/o any attempt at Classic etc.

When I did go the Classic/DVD Player route after managing to get Panther up, it would always request "QT 6.0.3 or better".

Advice?

Doug L.

Doug,

It sounds like you have two separate problems. The first, a refusal to start normally without resetting the power manager, could be a hardware problem common to the Lombard, a failed backside L2 cache. A few suggestions...

- When booted to either OSX or 9.x, open the System Profiler and see if it reports 512K of L2 cache.

- Another test for this: You must cold start to run this test...a restart will not work. If running in OSX, go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select MacOS 9 as your startup volume, then close the window; if it asks if you want to save the change, do so, then shut down. Now start up; if you must push the reset button, do so. When cold starting to 9.x, you may get a warning dialogue reporting a problem with RAM or cache memory.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=51159

- When booted to 9.x, open your Applications folder and see if you have Apple DVD Player v1.3; this is the latest version available for 9.x and your Lombard. Please remember that you MUST be booted to 9.x, not 10.x, in order to open Apple DVD Player and watch DVDs.

- Download QuickTime 6.0.3 here:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime603formac.html

Make SURE you are booted (started up) to 9.x, then run the QT 6.0.3 installer; do not install 9.x software when booted to 10.x.

If something is not clear, please don't hesitate to ask...

I booted (reset necessary as per usual); 10.3 came up, system profiler did not anywhere show 512K L2 . Startup Disk showed "10.3 on Macintosh HD" and "9.2.2 on Macintosh HD". I selected 9.2 and shut down. Booted (reset necessary), got "...system error... please reboot holding down Shift..." , with a "Restart" or "OK" button, which I "clicked." Got the system sound, no screen; (I think) it was here that I pressed Ctrl-Cmd-Power. I may not have had to do Reset here; I don't remember the sequence here exactly. I got "...reports cache problem, please [OK] to disable extensions". 9.2 came up, I looked in Applications for DVD Player. The only thing I found was iDVD 3; could not find any sign of "DVD" or other "iDVD" various locations. No idea where DVD 1.3 may be hiding. BTW, under 9.2 going File > Find nothing comes up.

I understand the L2 is hardwired on the processor card, necessitating a replacement for the card, and that the "highest" replacement is 433. Will it go with Panther? Will it still be necessary to keep the 2d 256MB out of the top slot? I think I can install a processor card myself.

Doug,

You are certainly having your share of problems with this Lombard, so let's see what can be done.

I don't think there is any question you have a failed backside L2 cache...power manager reset required to start + cache memory warning + no reported L2 cache. As you noted, a replacement microprocessor card is required.

These are your options:

- Buy a G4 upgrade cards with 433MHz, the fastest available speed for the Lombard (I believe); it will solve both your upper memory slot and L2 cache problem. However, the 433MHz is only 33MHz faster than your 400MHz card and the G4 CPU is only a benefit over your G3 for applications that are written to take advantage of the AltiVec G4 enhancement. Here is a somewhat dated list of applications:
http://macspeedzone.com/archive/frames2000/g4applications.shtml

- Buy a used 400MHz G3 microprocessor card that the reseller guarantees will run OSX with memory in both slots.

- Buy a cheaper 333MHz G3 microprocessor card with the same guarantee.

I mention the 333MHz for this reason: The Lombard is an aging machine and I think you want to put as little money possible in it. For example, you can get a 333 here for $79:
http://www.ifixit.com/cart/customer/home.php?m=31&a=7&c=24

Or here for $149 (overpriced):
http://www.pbparts.com/shop//lp+pcb

I would also go to this site, select the Lombard but leave the card manufacturer empty, then read about the G4 upgrade cards:
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/cpureview.lasso

Regarding OS9: If 9.x will not boot without pressing the shift key (extensions off), you either have a corrupted and/or incompatible extension. try these steps for your troubleshooting:

1. Boot to 9.x with shift-key-down.

2. Go to the Apple menu > Control Panels > Extensions Manager; select the MacOS 9.2.2 BASE extension set, close all windows, then restart. If successful, next try the MacOS 9.2.2 ALL set; this enables all Mac extensions, not third-party. If successful, try the extension troubleshooting in this article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30929

3. If your Lombard does not start to 9.x with any extensions on, boot to 10.x and run Disk Utility's First Aid to see if anything turns up. Do NOT run 9.x's Disk First Aid...it is not updated to run against 10.x.

Regarding Apple DVD Player 1.3: For whatever reason, Apple chose not to make this available for free downloading; this application is only available on MacOS 9.0 CDs or newer. Not knowing the source of your installed OS 9.2.2, these are your options:

- If your OS 9.x was drag-copied from another computer, it apparently did not have built-in DVD capability; Apple DVD Player does not install if the installer sees no DVD hardware.

- Since you are running 9.2.2, it becomes impossible to install Apple DVD Player 1.3 from a MacOS 9.2.1 CD or earlier; the installer will refuse to run, stating a newer version OS is already installed.

- If you have available a MacOS 9.0 CD or newer, or you know someone running a Wallstreet or Lombard with DVD playback, you can extract the necessary files from the CD or their HD. These are the requisite files:

Applications:

A folder named 'Apple DVD Player' containing:
- Apple DVD Player
- Apple DVD Player Guide
- Apple DVD Player Read Me
- DVD Navigation Manager
- DVD RuntimeLib

System Folder > Extensions:

- DVD Decoder Library
- DVD PC Card Enabler
- DVD Region Manager

System Folder > Help:

- Apple DVD Player Help

If you can gather all of the above files, you can manually place them in their proper location, then restart to make them active. However, don't bother with this until you solve the running issue of 9.2.2.

If you have a MacOS 9.0 CD or newer, you can download TomeViewer from VersionTracker and extract these files. If this is the path you wish to follow, let me know.