Internal Optical for DVD-RAM read/write

I want to buy an internal DVD multidrive to install in my MacPro. I have old Type 1 DVD-RAM media from my trusty Sawtooth G4 that I want to keep using and I want to continue archiving my freelance jobs, photos and video to DVD-RAM, using more current cartridge type disks.

Though I've searched quite a bit on the Internet for something I'm having trouble determining whether drives I'm finding accept the Type 1 cartridge and whether the drive will be compatible with my MacPro.

Does anyone have personal experience with installing a DVD-RAM drive on a MacPro? Any suggestions for selecting a drive or for installation?

MacPro 2.66 2GB 250/PM G4 AGP Sawtooth 1.6GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Nov 25, 2006 5:11 PM

29 replies

Feb 2, 2007 9:13 PM in response to Merle Reinhart

Thank you for this information. I am unable to test it at the moment but will try to during the weekend.

I am wondering a couple of things:
1. Did you find that you can write to Type 1, or Type 4, disks once they are formatted?
2. Does a DVD-RAM cartidge disk function fully (read/write) when in an external vs. when in an internal installation? Any difference in function?

I feel like whining now. Why would Apple support some DVD-RAM, but not the cartridge? Apple put a lot of press out about itself as a proponent of open source technologies. Why block full DVD-RAM function when you could support it? Why steal from the consumer the option of DVD-RAM? It's a high capacity, flexible, conveniently reusable storage option, with a price within the reach of many consumers. Blu-Ray drives are incredibly expensive, and the capacity of the disks is immense, making them overkill for everyday storage needs. It's just out of reach for most people.

Feb 3, 2007 8:15 AM in response to Debbie Nessamar1

I have had no issues writting to DVD-RAM, Type 1, 2 or 4 once it is formatted (yes, I too have a very long investment in DVD-RAM). Also, so far, I've seen no differences between internal verses external, but as I mentioned, this was the first time I tried formatting a new DVD-RAM disk since moving to Intel (in this case the drive was internal. When I get a new firewire box, I'll try it again there, but it'll probably be a few weeks).

Apple hasn't really seemed to promote DVD-RAM since about 2000. They haven't dropped it, but it does look like it's starting to crumble a bit around the edges.

I too am eyeing the Blu-Ray technology for archives (a 5 9.4GB DVD-RAM archive set is painful). Interestingly, the drives from Sony and Panasonic support 5x DVD-RAM read/write. Panasonic has also recently released 12x DVD-RAM drives but you have to order the media direct from Japan. So, the format still has legs.

Good luck and if I run across anything else that may be helpful, I'll post it.

Feb 3, 2007 10:02 AM in response to Merle Reinhart

Do you think I will have to wipe these existing disks and reformat them to be able to use them? I wonder what the difference is between your situation and mine?

My disks are TDK. The seller of the drive didn't think that had anything to do with it. But I'm still wondering. Especially after hearing your report. What brand of disks are yours? My old disks were formatted on the old G4 450 on OS9, some later on OS X on the same machine. It's just curious to me why I can't write to these old disks.

I also don't get why I can't see any other disks that are inserted in the drive besides the formatted DVD-RAM.

Thanks again for your input.

Feb 3, 2007 11:52 AM in response to Debbie Nessamar1

The disk I was testing with is a TDK (I've had the best luck with TDK disks over the years). My drive is also about two years older than yours.

I found 1 old 5.2GB double-sided disk that I'd formatted with OS 9 and it was perfectly writable (once I flipped the protect switch on the disk to allow writing). However, I have been noting on a lot of the newer drives that support DVD-RAM, they explicitly state they will NOT read the 2.6GB Disks (I think that would include the 5.2GB double-sided disks). I haven't seen that on the Panasonic's, however it is there with the Sony's, but I only saw it on the box, not in the specs on their website. Also, these drives I was looking at did not support the cartridge only disks (ie, they really only supported Type 4 disks which may or may not come in a cartridge). So, given that, I'm thinking that my next drive (probably a Panasonic or Sony Blu-Ray when the prices come down) will see me moving all the data from my old disks to newer disks (assuming my current DVD-RAM drive is still functioning).

As far as the CD/DVD issue, I don't know. Mine works fine with CD and DVDs. So, I'm not sure I'll be able to be any help there.

Feb 24, 2007 2:26 PM in response to Merle Reinhart

I've flashed my Sony drive into the NEC RAM-writing unit that it is under the label. I've also got a Pioneer 111 which can write RAM discs.

But I can't get Disk Utility to format the Fuji 2-3x discs I have. They were all previously formated on a G4 and worked perfectly as Ram discs. But now Disk Utility sees them as read only, and any attempt to reformat them fails.

I've tried the Terminal commands suggested by Merle, but I get a "No such file or directory." In his command line

diskutil partitionDisk <disk1> 1 APMFormat "Journaled HFS+" Two 5.0G

I've used disk1, with 1 being the number reported by Disk Utility. But it refers to the optical drive as Device 1. So I've tried it both ways.

What I think happened is Disk Utility tried to format the disc and failed, and at that point the disk is no longer considered mounted, so the terminal diskutil command can't see it.

Feb 24, 2007 2:34 PM in response to William Robinson

Mount any disk (DVD or CD) in the drive. In Terminal run the command:

df -h

Look in the output listing for the volume you just mounted. You want to note the /dev/diskXsN entry. Eject the disk and put in the one you want to format.

In place of <disk1> use the "diskX" from the df output.

It is probably the same number as Disk Utility reported, but this is really the number that the diskutil command is looking for.

If it still doesn't work, then I'm not sure what to try next (I don't have such a setup and don't want to flash my drive).

One thing I don't think I mentioned previously is that the disks I was using when I got the diskutil command to succeed were 1x disks. I don't have any 3x disks.

Message was edited by: Merle Reinhart

Feb 25, 2007 6:06 AM in response to Merle Reinhart

Thanks for the help, Merle.
The df -h command identifies the drive as Disk2. So the command I used was

diskutil partitionDisk <disk2> 1 APMFormat "Journaled HFS+" Two 5.0G

But Terminal returns "No Such file or directory."

Disk Utiity identified the drive as Device 0. So I tried putting Device0 in the command and Device1, but got the same result each time: No such file or directory. When I insert a previously formated DVD-Ram (with no contents) the Finder shows it as MEI_UDF, so I tried that in the command. No luck.

It's not clear to me why the Intel version of OS 10.4.8 cannot do what the PPC version could, but it seems to be the case. Any previously formated disk I put it in is reported by Disk Utility as Write Only. Perhaps 10.4.9 (due any day now) will solve the problem.

Feb 25, 2007 6:54 AM in response to William Robinson

Update:

I finally got it to work with Disk Utility. Pure luck I'm afraid.

I noticed that my blank but formated ram discs mounted as MEI_UDF, and were reported as UDF format (Read Only). But I got an "Invalid argument" whenever I tried to reformat as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Then I put in a disk that had files on it, and noticed that Disk Utility showed it as Read/Write and in the format Mac OS Extended. No " Journaled." So I tried to reformat the other UDF disks as Mac OS Extended. And it worked!

I gave them new names during the process and they mounted in the Finder, and were reported as read/write by Disk Utility. I was able to copy or trash files from them, as I would expect from a RAM disk.

I have no idea why Journaling prevented the formating, nor why the previous format was lost and the disks were seen as read only UDF. But I have to assume it has to do with some code in the Intel version of OSX 10.4.8.

I hope this helps some other lost RAM souls out there.

Feb 25, 2007 8:36 AM in response to William Robinson

I'm not sure either why journaling didn't work.

However, even with PPC and to some extent even with OS9, I have had problems with preformatted DVD-RAM disks (they are formatted as UDF). As a result, I've only bought from companies that are not preformatted (which was my case with the TDK disks).

It's possible that may have lead to some of the peculiarities that you ran into.

Glad you were able to work around the issues.

Feb 25, 2007 12:00 PM in response to Merle Reinhart

The discs I am using didn't come preformatted. I formatted them a couple of years ago on a Pioneer 110. But they showed up on my Mac Pro as MEI_UFD. I don't recall what names I gave them, but it certainly wasn't MEI_UFD. Although I'm not able to recall what formatting I gave them back then, Journaled or not. But I found a solution that works for me, at least until some other "advance" sends me scurrying again.

Apr 21, 2007 2:19 PM in response to William Robinson

I've once again taken some time to try to tackle the dreaded DVD-RAM mystery. To review, I started this discussion and had purchased the Matshita DVD-Ram SW-9574S, sold under the name Panasonic LF-M821-OEM at this URL: http://www.usb-ware.com/panasonic-lf-m821-oem.htm.

When installing the Panasonic drive I had put the Panasonic in the lower position since it was longer, and the Pioneer in the upper position. I had plugged the extension cable plug into the Panasonic and the Pioneer into the main cable plug. I wasn't able to see disks in the Panasonic drive, except the prewritten DVD-RAM 4.7 Type 1 cartridge disks that were showing up as Read Only. Toast couldn't see any disks in the drive. It was suggested that I should plug them the opposite way. I've done that. Now Toast and Tiger see disks in either drive. That's great.

BUT....now the DVD-RAM Type 1 cartridges with data previously written on them in my old G4's DVD-RAM drive are rejected as unreadable. Disk Utility still cannot format the blank 9.4 Type 1 cartridge disk, returning an invalid argument error. When using Terminal with the command: diskutil partitionDisk <disk2> 1 APMFormat "Journaled HFS+" DN Archive 07-1A 4.3G (or just "HFS+") Terminal returns "No such file or directory."

Does anyone have any ideas about what else I can try that might work? Call me stubborn, but I'm not ready to give up yet. I may have missed a posting that is just the answer. Direct me to it if that's the case. Thank you for your assistance.

Apr 22, 2007 6:50 PM in response to Debbie Nessamar1

Debbie,

When using a partition name with spaces, the easiest thing to do is include the name in quotes.

I think your command may work as follows:

diskutil partitionDisk disk2 1 APMFormat "Journaled HFS+" "DN Archive 07-1A" 4.3G

replace the "disk2" with the correct disk device number.

Also, I filed a bugreport with Apple about the DiskUtility problem not being able to format/partition DVD-RAM disks. At this point, all I can say if that they have accepted it and to just be patient.

Mac Pro 3.0GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9) 4GB, X1900XT, WD Raptor

Apr 22, 2007 9:20 PM in response to Merle Reinhart

Merle,

Thank you once again for your assistance. I used the command:

diskutil partitionDisk disk2 1 APMFormat "Journaled HFS+" "DN Archive07-1A" 4.3G

It worked! I've formatted both sides of the 9.4GB disk. I'll try one of the smaller capacity disks tomorrow and report on the results.

It feels great to know I've overcome this roadblock.

Denisimo

Level 1

114 points

Apr 23, 2007 3:12 AM in response to Sebastian Soyka

Hi Sebastian, Thanks for the information and link regarding the Sony DW-D150A optical drive. I've flashed my Sony following their instructions and ii works perfectly with its new CD burning speed. It's also nice to know I can now copy DVD_RAM disks on the fly. Thanks again for the info

Denisimo

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Internal Optical for DVD-RAM read/write