Firewire Problem When Using External Burner

Question

Firewire Problem When Using External Burner

Before I go into detail about my problem let me say that I contacted the manufacturers CS and they were unable to help (sent a new burner and I still had the same problem).

I finally got an external DVD burner, the lacie d2 with Lightscribe, and I plugged it in the firewire port, updated it with all the latest drivers and tried burning some cd's from an iTunes (7.1) playlist. It checked the media, started to burn the first song and and immediately went to finishing the disc burning without going through the other songs. But then it just hung there (the player started running, I could hear it, but when it froze after the 1st song he player just quieted down). I left it alone for awhile figuring it would eject the disc but nothing happened. I was unable to stop the process, quit iTunes or even eject the disc. Eventually I had to force quit and restart the computer.

I tried it using Toast but I got an error the first time and the second time I tried it froze on the burn screen. The funny thing is I'm able to burn when using the usb connection (it's really slow though, 1.0) and I'm able to rip cd's when connected via friewire but burning causes all types of problems.

The burner shows up on the system profile (vendor supported after updating with drivers), I've switched firewire cables, and used both ports on the iMac and the dvd burner, and after contacting Lacie they sent me a second burner but the problem persisted. I use a lacie external hard drive and never had a problem with it so I was wondering if anyone had an explanation or a similar problem. If not I was thinking of sending this second one back and trying the new Sony firewire dvd burners.

And one last thing, I got this because my superdrive gave up on me, although it's still recognized in the system profiler, it just doesn't start up if I put in a cd or dvd.

Please help as I'm at the end of my rope with this burner.

iMac G4 Flat Screen Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Mar 15, 2007 7:01 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

K Shaffer

Level 7

34,966 points

Mar 16, 2007 10:39 PM in response to Mervin Jensen

I'm curious if the internal superdrive's inaccessibility to the system and
the firewire port issues are related; or share a common thread in how
they may require one action to try and make them work.

Aside from that speculation, have you tried seeing what the Apple
Hardware Test (boot the computer from it) says in regard to this
matter and the details of any error codes it may generate? And
if you can run Disk Utility from the installer OSX disc#1 from the
external FireWire disc drive, to see if any maintenance can help
the system, that would be nice.

There also are third-party freeware disc burn utilities; and a few share-
ware ones that are quite good. They usually will work in problematic
situations where the hardware is OK and the basic OS X is, too; but
for some reason the external FW or internal replacement Superdrive
won't burn a disc or does it partially; or improperly. I've used my disc
burners so rarely I am not a great one to improvise here; but I did get
Burn 1.7u (v12) http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net and it does work well.

Can you boot the computer from any of the DVD - Firewire external
recorder/players you have or had? You should be able to boot the OSX
from the installer disc#1 from a good external; but some may not do it.

Was there any issue in the procedures you described before upgrading
the system to 10.4.9? How about Quicktime 7.1.5 or iTunes 7.1.1?

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Answer 2

Mar 17, 2007 1:08 PM in response to K Shaffer

I'm curious if the internal superdrive's
inaccessibility to the system and
the firewire port issues are related; or share a
common thread in how
they may require one action to try and make them
work.

I was thinking the same thing but I'll give your other suggestions a try first.

Was there any issue in the procedures you described
before upgrading
the system to 10.4.9? How about Quicktime 7.1.5 or
iTunes 7.1.1?

The same problems occurred before and after updating to 10.4.9. Thanks for the tips and suggestions. I won't be able to get to them till later but when I do I'll post here about the results.

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Answer 3

Brent B

Level 1

0 points

Mar 22, 2007 10:05 AM in response to Mervin Jensen

Hi - I'm having the exact same problem with my LaCie Firewire/USB DL Lightscribe burner. My Mac will initially recognize the burner correctly, but after a few minutes the DVD burner stops responding to the computer and the computer no longer recognizes the DVD burner if I look under system profile.

I've opened a ticket at LaCie and thei initial suggestion was to repair permissions. I tried this and it did not work, so I've sent them some screen shots and and more details. It is very frustrating.

Powerbook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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Answer 4

Mar 23, 2007 4:52 PM in response to Mervin Jensen

All right I've tried using the hardware test disk but unfortunately when I restart the computer and hold down C the computer won't boot from the external dvd. I also tried Burn but was unsuccessful with that program as well. I'm on my second external from Lacie and just yesterday decided to return it and get a refund. I'm still not sure if it's my computers fault or the externals. I'll try a different brand this time.

Brent, what is the status of your Apple superdrive? Was it similar to mine in that it doesn't read any discs (doesn't even start up/spinning) and still shows up in the Apple Profiler?

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Answer 5

K Shaffer

Level 7

34,966 points

Mar 26, 2007 10:02 PM in response to Mervin Jensen

There is a keyboard command to press when you are forcing the computer
to seek any OSX version from which it can be booted; and other commands
where you make available any partition or device which may have a system
or applicable software from which to boot the computer.

You may also see if the System Preferences "Startup Disk"
item can be set to boot from an OSX installer DVD in the
external DVD drive, from within this System Prefs controls.

Using the C key on startup should not find a boot system on an external
DVD drive if an internal drive is available (even if defective) since it would
be trying to find a disc in the internal optical drive with such a command.

Try holding X on startup to see what you get on the startup screen. Should
be either a startup manager screen that has icons to other startup discs
or maybe something else. And also, secondly, try using OPT key on start
instead of X or C, to see what you get on the display. It may show you
some means of utilizing the external DVD drive with the OS X full install
disc #1 and/or any other utility you may have suitable for use in the Mac.

(Of course, there is a chance I've overlooked something...!)

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Answer 6

Apr 14, 2007 10:44 AM in response to K Shaffer

Just a little update to my problem. I didn't try all of the startup commands that K Shaffer (thanks for all the helpful input by the way!) suggested in the last post as I was too frustrated with the burner and just returned it. But the other day I bought the Sony DRX830UL-T as a last chance burner figuring if the firewire problem still existed I'd just settle with using the USB connection. To my surprise the thing worked fine, perfectly actually, ripping music at speeds up to 9x and burning a 3 gb dvd in about 10 minutes (and that was using a slow 4x dvd), without verification it would have burned it even quicker compare that to the LaCie burner which took 4 hours to burn a 4 gb disc.

So far after one day this thing has not failed me (keeps fingers crossed) but the only problem seems to be that in the system profiler under burn support it has it listed as "unsupported." This also occurred with my LaCie until I updated all the drivers, unfortunately the Sony website doesn't have any firmware upgrades yet (they're supposed to be coming soon).

It was $10 more than the LaCie and came with the same crappy Toast 6 lite software but since I have the full Toast 7 that's no problem. I recommend this to anyone who is having trouble with their LaCie burner.

iMac G4 Flat Screen Mac OS X (10.4.9)

iMac G4 Flat Screen Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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Answer 7

Apr 16, 2007 6:45 PM in response to Mervin Jensen

I just want to add my kudos to the Sony DRX-830ULT external firewire drive, too. My combo-drive will still read CDs but went kaput several months ago regarding DVDs, it even ejects the cleaning disks. I was going to get a Lacie until I saw this thread, because I've been very pleased with the other Lacie products I have.

I bought the Sony just last week and was extremely pleased when I just plugged it in, connected with Firewire, popped in a DVD, and Apple's DVD player instantly came on to play it. Really couldn't find definitive answers anywhere if this would happen -- but it did, at least IF you have an internal combo drive (even if it's kaput). (I like to watch DVDs on my computer, and take screenshots with SnapzProX). It's even played every DVD I burned on my computer over the past few years.

Haven't tried burning any DVDs on it yet, no reason to at this time, but I'll be quite content using ToastLite OR purchasing Toast 7.

So thanks a bunch for your post, Mervin Jensen. Saved me a lot of possible headache.

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