Sony/NEC Optiarc AD-7170A Problems

Only the Apple drive has the EFI firmware. Best Google the drive and EFI firmware for sites on how to do it. The Apple drive cost $79 at the store and may be worth your time not to fuss with it.

Michael

The drive you purchased through New Egg will have Sony firmware on it and any update to the firmware you do will just give you the latest Sony firmware. No company but Plextor supplies a Mac utility for updating firmware (although hacks exist for other brands such as Pioneer), so the best way to update firmware is with Boot Camp. Otherwise, you will have to transfer the drive to a PC. You will have to download the firmware (CDRInfo maintains a nice database of latest firmware) and run the utility that updates it. But Apple does not make its firmware available for cross flashing drives, so I don't see how updating firmware will help you.
Under Disc Burning in the system profiler does it say Yes (unsupported) or No
(unsupported)? I have an LG drive (internal) and Plextor (external) which burn beautifully with the IApps and both read Yes (unsupported) , so just saying (unsupported) shouldn't indicatethat it won't burn. I can't see any reason why any drive you buy won't burn, it just may not boot the system.
You may just have a bad drive. There are other complaints about this drive in this forum and your 2nd sample may just be defective. Can you try it in another machine? I suspect it won't burn there either.

I have a new macpro with this burner and I have the same problems.

I'm NOT HAPPY AT ALL


OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A:

Firmware Revision: 1.N8
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: No

angelo

When my Sony DW-U21A that came with my G5 stopped burning DVDs I decided to replace it. Foolish me for thinking that if I picked up a Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A from any old third-party vendor it would work just fine. Anyway, here it is, and rather than trying to get my money back, and then doling out the extra cash for a SuperDrive, I've started learning about the fine art of updating the firmware with BinFlash. I've found plenty of firmware variatons that will install just fine, but still nothing that will let me burn, at least not with my configuration.

"Googl[ing] the drive and EFI firmware for sites on how to do it" brings up ziltch, and although $79 for an Apple drive is not quite twice the amount that I would otherwise pay, it still gives me an ulcer to think of going that route, especially when I consider that it's an Apple drive that let me down in the first place.

Is the idea of getting this drive to work properly on my Mac really just a closed book?

Sorry to hear you are having problems. It does sound as if the drive may be bad. I would try a few things first if you haven't already done so. Have you tried using Patchburn? It is a free program widely used in the Mac world to allow newer drives to work with older versions of the operating system. Although 10.4.10 would work with your Sony, 10.3.9 won't. The drive is too new for the OS. It's easy to download and install and I've never heard of it causing problems. Have you also tried different brands of media?
Both these things can make a difference. But if the drive really is bad, you really don't need to buy an Apple drive, in fact, there are many reasons not to. My MacPro came with a Sony Optiarc that was defective - it's not just retail or oem drives that can go bad. Apple almost never updates their firmware, and from all your work you should now realize how important good firmware is. I have 2 non-Apple drive in my MacPro (a Pioneer and an LG) and two in my G4 (a Pioneer and an LG) and all work just fine. You just happened to get a defective drive. It has nothing to do with EFI, or having the drive supplied by Apple. Please consider a Pioneer 112. It is a much more reliable drive than the Sony, and is being used in the latest MacPro's. If you get an "Apple" drive it will simply be another Sony or the Pioneer for twice the money you could get it online. It would have Apple firmware, which is never as good as the original drive makers firmware. A Pioneer you buy online will do everything an Apple supplied drive does, only better, because of Pioneer's superior firmware.
Good luck, don't let this get you down it's fixable without spending $80 more. I always tell myself in situations like this (and I've been there often) that I spent my money not on a bad drive but on all that I learned in putting it right. It helps a little

Message was edited by: bicomputational

Message was edited by: bicomputational

Thanks for all the good info! It's burning like wildfire.

Seeing as I'm on 10.3.9 (why buy Tiger NOW?) I took your advice and tried Patchburn. The System Profiler still says that burning is not supported, but so far Toast doesn't seem to care.

I'm not in the habit of tweaking my gear like that and it's amazing how much frustration you can go through before getting solid info. Thanks again!

Both my in-built Optiarcs in my Mac Pro crash when burning with Toast 8
Understandable if it was a cheap machine !!!!
Also , 2 months on and I'm still waiting for my new Macbook Pro to arrive
Sort it out Apple

I have brand new MacPro, Optiarc drive inside [Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A, firmware 1.N8] says it reads DVD, writes -R -RW etc. etc.

I have now put in several diff. types of disks [Apple 4X DVD-R, Imation DVD-R 8x] both of which can burn fine in my PowerMacG5 and I get the "don't have enough access privileges" message = disk won't mount on desktop even using diskutility

What can I do before I call AppleCare...I've read other threads here on topic = I have repaired permissions, restarted,

I did do a get info in Diskutility on the burner/drive and it says was locked and not writable and says read only DVD-R but dont know if that's talking bout the drive or the disk itself [there is only one line showing not the drive with disk itself under its name andthe name of the drive is Optiarc and it doesn't indicate it's the disk itself = but it's a blank disk totally DVD-R type and this happens with more than one disk

I can report a cure: I called Applecare and was insistent [politely so] about in office repair [not wanting to take the machine to AppleStore] and was booted up to program specialist [think lst call was offshore person]. I described everything to him and we tried a few things and then created test user. Then we went back to my main user and in user/library/preferences we removed the finder.plist and desktop.plist and rebooted.

All works fine now, with Ask What to Do in the CD-DVD preferences. Blank disk is recognizable.

So, do I understand all of this correctly if I say that I can buy a bulk 7170A and it will work (burn) without any additional hacks or patches if I just use it on a machine running 10.4 or later?

Is there a list somewhere of drives that are compatible with the different OS versions?

Are you still running 10.4.5? The 10.4.6. update added more burn support. I'd download the 10.4.11 combo update and give it a try.

Michaelworks wrote:
Only the Apple drive has the EFI firmware. Best Google the drive and EFI firmware for sites on how to do it. The Apple drive cost $79 at the store and may be worth your time not to fuss with it.

Michael

I just replaced my Mac Pro Sony drive last night with a Pioneer DVR-1810 from Fry's for like $40. So far it is working fine burning some CDs and DVDs with Toast. Obviously I don't have any "EFI Firmware" in my drive. I am getting faster CD rips too.

Steve