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G4 DVD Burner Upgrade.
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jfleea
Newbie
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2. May 2005 @ 13:35 |
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I fitted a Panasonic DVR 106 to my Mac G4 533 but it declares my dvds (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD RAM) as locked and spits them out. I have tried it with OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.1.
I get exactly the same result with a DVR 107 and I have no reason to believe that either drive is faulty.
The drives are set as masters as was the CD drive that I replaced. I have a 100MB ZIP drive which means that the DVR is connected by means of an 80 way connector.
Can anyone help?
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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3. May 2005 @ 06:07 |
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You may need to upgrade your firmware. I had some problems with my DVR 107 when I first got it running 10.2 because the drivers were added in 10.3. There was a hack to get iTunes and Disk Utility to run the drive prior but I don't recall where I found it. I will check into it and hopefully find something for you. You may also look into Toast as a burning program if you don't already have it. I know it read the drive fine although the built in burning software didn't.
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jfleea
Newbie
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3. May 2005 @ 10:20 |
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Thank you for your comment. I do have Toast but the difficulty is that when I load a DVD disc a window appears asking whether initialisation is required. If I OK it then tells me that it cannot because the disc is locked and spits the disc out. If I Cancel it just spits the disc out anyway. I have read that a firmware update is best carried out using a PC but this may be because the Panasonic updates are only PC oriented........but I am not even sure of that!
Thank you again and my best regards
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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3. May 2005 @ 11:04 |
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It seems that Disk Utility is trying to handle the disk instead of letting Toast handle it. I am currently away from my Mac but I will look at some settings when I get home. For me, I pop the Disk in and Toast opens automatically. You should be able to do the same, although I am in 10.3 and it might be different in 10.1 but I don't think so. What version of Toast are you running?
Sorry I'm not much help now, but I will check into it when I am at home.
Also, are you sure it is a Panasonic and not Pioneer? I can't find any info on those models for Panasonic, and I actually misread your first post as I have the Pioneer 107 in my G4. I update my firmware fine when I first got it using this:
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/action.lasso?-database=faq.fp3&-layout=FaqList&-response=answer.faq.lasso&-recordID=34189&-search
Hope that helps if you have a Pioneer....
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. May 2005 @ 11:22
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jfleea
Newbie
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3. May 2005 @ 12:48 |
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Thank you for the reply. I meant Pioneer of course. My version of Toast is 5 and I will try a DVD disc load with it open,,,,,I will let you know how it goes.
John.L
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jfleea
Newbie
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3. May 2005 @ 21:01 |
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With Toast (5.01) open and a DVD disc inserted the drive name appears at the bottom of the toast screen. Unfortunately no desktop disc icon appears and when I close the Toast window out pops the disc. This is fun!
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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4. May 2005 @ 06:11 |
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I looked around on mine a little last night and saw a couple things that might help. Again, I am on 10.3 so I am not sure how much applies to 10.1
Go into system prefs and see if it has a CD/DVD panel under hardware. On mine all the prefs for blank media are set to open toast when they are inserted. Try to change that. Also, try the firmware update that I linked above. It is pretty straight foreward and may solve your problem.
If you put the disk in with toast open, will it let you burn onto the disk? If so, I wouldn't worry about the disk mounting unless you have already burnt on it and then it won't mount.
Worse case scenario, splurge and pick up Tiger. Apple added the 106 and 107 in 10.3, so you shouldn't need anything if you run 10.4
Hope this helps.
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jfleea
Newbie
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5. May 2005 @ 01:48 |
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Thanks again for the suggestions. No joy I'm afraid - with regard to OS 10.1 preferences the hardware controls are limited and don't help at all. Loading a dvd disc with Toast open doesn't help either as Toast appears unable to see the disc although it recognises the drive.
I will upgrade to OS10.3 and see what happens. I will let you know but I may be gone for a while!
Regards.
John.L
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jfleea
Newbie
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14. May 2005 @ 10:28 |
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Hi again. I have upgraded to 10.3.9 and when it didn't happen for me I decided to try the Pioneer Tech Support. They replied within 24 hours and said that the DVR 106 and 107 were not Mac compatible since there was a firmware difference between the PC versions and the Mac Combodrives.
Is there a software patch available or is it possible for the firmware to be modified?
Regards
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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15. May 2005 @ 09:55 |
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What a line of crap. I have the DVR 107 in my tower and have been using it for over a year now.
Try the link I posted above for the xcelerate your mac site. That has the firmware upgrade that you need.
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jfleea
Newbie
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15. May 2005 @ 12:04 |
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Thankyou for your comment - unfortunately the active link to the firmware update didn't show. Would you mind repeating it please as I would like to try it.
However there is a note above the message box as I type this which tells me that HTML tags are stripped out is that perhaps why.
Once again thankyou for your interest.
Best Regards
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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15. May 2005 @ 13:38 |
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http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/action.lasso?-database=faq.fp3&-lay...
That takes you to a great site for upgrading your Apple. These guys have done their homework. I hope that helps you out.
It really irks me when companies don't take the time out to assist someone because they are on an Apple. I have a Maxtor drive that should be 45 gigs but I can't format it past 38. When I called Maxtor they just told me it was probably a "problem" with Apple hardware and they couldn't help. Well...thats one less company I will bother buying a product with.
Anyway, I hope that these guys can help you out. You may also want to check Macfora.com for some info. A lot of knowledgable people over there too.
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Senior Member
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24. May 2005 @ 20:53 |
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Senior Member
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24. May 2005 @ 20:53 |
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mocker
Newbie
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26. May 2005 @ 02:32 |
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I have a similar problem to jfleea. The only difference is my dvd drive IS a Panasonic Multi SW-9571 and my Mac is a G4 (OS 9.2.2). The same problem, when I insert a blank dvd, my G4 attempts to initialize it and it tells me it failed beause the disk is "locked" and spits out the disk.
Is there a link to an firmware upgrade for my drive, if you think that's my problem as well?
Thanks,great site,btw.
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jfleea
Newbie
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26. May 2005 @ 07:21 |
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Hallo and thankyou for your advice. I currently have a Pioneer 106D and 107D so I intend to persvere for a while as there appear to be many satisfied users out there.
This is an update as to where I am now.
I now have OS 10.3.9 and Roxio Toast 6.1 installed and have flashed my 106D using the Xlr8yourmac website programme.
The system now recognises my dvd burner as being at version 1.5 (was 1.4.7) and things are different.........but I am still not burning yet. It occurred to me that my DVD discs may not be compatible with the 106D - can a 106D user please advise me what brands work for them?
Thanks again for your interest and help
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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26. May 2005 @ 08:35 |
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jfleea-
Try running Patchburn for 10.3 just to make sure.
http://www.patchburn.de/download.html
I've not encountered any disks that my Pioneer doesn't like. I have used Memorex, Maxell, TDK, Verbatim, and Taiyo Yuden all with success. I have begun to rely a lot on my TYs since I bought them at a really good price and they are supposed to be the best of the best. Check www.supermediastore.com and see what the price on the 4x -Rs are at this time. When I bought them a pack of 100 was under $30 which is a great price.
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jfleea
Newbie
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2. June 2005 @ 08:25 |
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Just to let you know that I have burnt my first DVD. Brilliant. However to get there I cleaned up the Hard Drives(2)...installed OSX10.3.9...........and also Roxio Toast V6.1.
I had previously flashed my Pioneer 106D to V1.5 using the source you advised but in the end I did not use Patchburner as all it did was to lock me in to a restart cycle. Is there a benefit that I may be missing out on?
I would like to thank you very much for the trouble that you took to assist me and also to say that this is a brilliant site!
My very best regards
John.L
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AtrophyG4
Junior Member
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3. June 2005 @ 08:22 |
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Glad to here it worked for you, jfleea. You shouldn't need Patchburn if everything else works. All it does is add burn capabilities to Native X programs (iTunes, iDVD, Disk Burner). 10.3 did this for those drives so you have no worries there.
I am curious...If you leave a disk in your drive for a period of time after it has done its thing, and then try to eject it, does it unmount and then remount without coming out? Example: You just finished ripping a CD to iTunes, but you left it in the drive about 20 minutes after it was done. You hit eject and the disk unmounts on the desktop, but the drive does not come out. The disk will then show back up on the desktop and if you eject it comes out fine. Just like it needs a refresher or something. My 107 did this for a while, but when I upgraded to 10.4 it works flawlessly now.
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