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Best compatible blu ray burner for late 2013 iMac

Hello everyone. I'm a little gun shy as I have bought an LG BE14NU40 which is correctly identified, but has a strange error after it starts to burn DVD/BD. For this reason I am reaching out to the community for those of you who have an external USB 3.0 BD reader/writer so I can insure I don't burn up more cash on something that ultimately will fail. The error this drive has was widely reported a few years back with a different version but I never could find a fix to the issu which is a shame, but that is life. Just in case anyone doesn't know Apple's stance on the issue is that the drive is considered 3rd party so there is no support, and this drive (according to LG tech support technician) is supposed to be compatible with any mac. Anyway thank you so much for your input.


MelRay

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Dec 1, 2015 7:56 AM

Reply
11 replies

Dec 1, 2015 8:02 AM in response to Mel Herndon

What error do you get?


Most drives are compatible with Macs (except that you need software that will burn the DVD as well as read it since Macs do not have blu-ray support). So, what software do you use?


Also, what helps is to use the slowest burn setting available as you will get fewer burn errors (it might take a bit longer, but certainly beats winding up with a coaster).

Dec 1, 2015 2:20 PM in response to Mel Herndon

Also I came across a post on a thread you replied to. However when I tried to see the response (following the link) it just took me to the support page to get technical support. So what common sense things did you do specifically? I have tried both DVD and blu ray, changed the settings to burn at 1x, etc. and still it starts to process the burn and then the error. Like I said I verified the LG burner has the latest firmware revision and was told it is compatible with mac (in my opinion a USB drive should just *work*) unless of course there is an issue between os/firmware, etc. Thanks for the response. If you have any suggestions on what I might try that I haven't done I would appreciate your comments.

Dec 1, 2015 3:02 PM in response to Mel Herndon

Just in general, I find drives that have their own power supply more reliable because they do not need to draw all their power from the USB ports. That might be one possible cause for a "connection not stable" since burning a DVD takes some processing power, but it is a guess. Does your drive have its own power supply? Also, only use excellent quality media such as Verbatim.

Dec 2, 2015 6:57 AM in response to babowa

No we could rule that out this drive cost 135.00 retail USD. It has its own power supply. I really wish I could code so I could see specifically what is happening to cause it to throw the error. As time permits I may disconnect it from my windows desktop again and play some more with trying to find the cause of the problem. As an aside even though this is not related to this post I find it interesting that after the upgrade from Yosemite which was on this iMac to El Capitan I have other odd things not working like the escape key, and command option escape to force quit. I can select force quit from the menu option but the key combo doesn't work. Which brings me to a possible issue with the transition from yosemite to el capitan being the culprit in regards to my burner issue. Dunno wish I would have had money to buy an external hard drive (I have one now for time machine) otherwise I would drop back to yosemite. Is is possible since now the cloud is used to re-install the OS to just revert back and do a clean install of el capitan even though it would cost me time to get all my apps reinstalled. I'm guessing the process would be the same..first yosemite would have to be reinstalled then el capitan as an upgrade as opposed to just doing a clean install of el capitan? Thanks for your help and suggestion!


MelRay

Dec 2, 2015 1:00 PM in response to Mel Herndon

Well, you must erase your hard drive to go backwards; you can use internet recovery (Command + Option+ R) to boot into Apple's servers (takes quite a while), then use that Disk Utility to erase your drive, and then choose to reinstall OS X. This method will reinstall the original OS (if yours came with Lion or later); if it came with Snow leopard or earlier, you'll need the install disks to do the same thing. You can then update to Yosemite if you had that earlier as it should be in your Purchases section at the app store.


Since you have a time machine backup, after erasing the hard drive (while still in recovery), you can check if you can restore from an earlier backup there rather than the latest one which would have El Capitan I assume (I do not use TM, so I can't help in that regard). I prefer bootable clones as they are (to me) much easier to deal with in emergency cases; I have two of every OS version that was ever on this iMac (or my MBP) strewn across three external drives. I simply boot into the clone on the external, wipe or repartition my internall, and clone my system back.

Dec 2, 2015 1:03 PM in response to babowa

No we could rule that out this drive cost 135.00 retail USD. It has its own power supply. I really wish I could code so I could see specifically what is happening to cause it to throw the error. As time permits I may disconnect it from my windows desktop again and play some more with trying to find the cause of the problem. As an aside even though this is not related to this post I find it interesting that after the upgrade from Yosemite which was on this iMac to El Capitan I have other odd things not working like the escape key, and command option escape to force quit. I can select force quit from the menu option but the key combo doesn't work. Which brings me to a possible issue with the transition from yosemite to el capitan being the culprit in regards to my burner issue. Dunno wish I would have had money to buy an external hard drive (I have one now for time machine) otherwise I would drop back to yosemite. Is is possible since now the cloud is used to re-install the OS to just revert back and do a clean install of el capitan even though it would cost me time to get all my apps reinstalled. I'm guessing the process would be the same..first yosemite would have to be reinstalled then el capitan as an upgrade as opposed to just doing a clean install of el capitan? Thanks for your help and suggestions

Dec 2, 2015 1:52 PM in response to Mel Herndon

Actually, not directly as I don't have any blu-ray discs; however, my DVD burner/player - a regular one - is from OWC and they are very good with Mac stuff, so you might want to check that out:


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/?_ga=1.37518368.189201 4026.1448833731


They've got several blu-ray options listed - this plain Jane model is what I have:


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MR3F82SD24S/

Best compatible blu ray burner for late 2013 iMac

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