OWC Mercury Pro does not show up as a CD writer

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Tom1980 Author

Level 1

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OWC Mercury Pro does not show up as a CD writer

Hi,

I bought an OWC Mercury Pro FireWire/USB2 52x32x52x CD-RW. It will read CD's that are already burned just fine. However, when I try to burn a new CD, the device doesn't show up as a writer and hence I cannot proceed with the burn process.

The OWC manual says to install FireWire Drivers if this happens. My imac, however, does not have a firewire port--only a USB 1.1 port. Before I bought this drive, I researched the product and it sounded like it should work with a 1.1 USB connection (backward compatible), albeit at a slow speed. The latter is not a major concern, as I only need to burn a CD occasionally.

Has anyone tried using this product with a USB 1.1 connection and/or does anyone have any ideas on how to remedy this?

The OWC tech people keep insuring me that there's nothing wrong with the drive, but they've not offered any suggestions on how to fix the problem.

This problem occurs with all of the burn software I've tried:

NTI Dragon Burn, Disc Burner 1.01, Adaptec Toast 4.1.2 and Discribe 9x.

Tom

imac 350 MHz/512k Mac OS 9.1.x

Posted on Jun 2, 2007 5:23 PM

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Answer 1

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Jun 3, 2007 10:35 AM in response to Tom1980

Hi, Tom. There may be no OS 9 and USB 1.1-compatible software for that drive, because the fastest one can burn a disc via USB 1.1 is only 4x. That speed limitation, imposed by the very low bandwidth of the USB 1.1 protocol, makes it a waste of money for anyone who has only USB 1.1 (and no Firewire) to buy such a fast drive in the first place.

If you can't return the drive for a refund, your best bet may be to try a newer OS 9-compatible version of Toast. When Toast 4.1.2 was current, there were no CD burners on the market that could burn discs any faster than 8x or 16x, even through a Firewire connection. Toast 5 or Toast 6 might offer support for your drive mechanism. It may be worth a call or email to Roxio's tech support to ask whether or not that's true. And if the answer is yes, make sure it applies to USB 1.1 as well as Firewire connections.

You will still be limited to 2x or 4x burn speed, even if the drive is supported.

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Answer 2

Jun 3, 2007 2:59 PM in response to Tom1980

Hi, Tom -

Another possibility - some versions of Toast (including all the 4.x, I think) have an interference issue with Apple's Authoring Support software and the Disc Burner Extension. The main symptom of this conflict is an inability of the Mac to 'see' an external burner.

In order to use those versions of Toast, it is necessary to disable these extensions in Extensions Manager -
Authoring Support
Firewire Authoring Support
SDAP Authoring Support
USB Authoring Support
Disc Burner Extension

In order to use Disc Burner, it is necessary to disable the Toast extensions instead.

Remember to restart after making changes to the set of active extensions.

Many folk who use both Toast and Disc Burner find it convenient to create different sets of extensions, so that switching from one group to the other is easier.

Tip - you can change which set of extensions to use during startup. To do this, upon starting up the machine immediately press the Spacebar, keep it held down. Extensions Manager will open just before extensions would normally start loading, at which time a different set of extensions can be selected.

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