Mac + CD burner: help needed

[CityK]

A friend of mine has a Mac G4 which only has a DVD-Rom drive. He's not very computer literate but he is into music quite a bit and so wanted to get a CD-RW drive to burn his own CDs. He purchased a LiteOn and, being clueless about how to install it, called on me for help.

I know nothing about Macs. This experience of working on his system certainly didn't make me want to change that fact either. What a frickin' hassle - it reminded me of a Compaq.

Anyways, I finally managed to swap out the DVD-rom drive for a new LiteOn CD-RW (because the stupid thing only has one 5'1/4 drive bay!). The problem is that when we powered up the system, the LiteOn drive was only detected as a CD-Rom drive. wtf?

Anyone know how to make the Mac properly recognize the burner? ... is this a BIOS thing? is this a OS thing? is this a hardware thing?

The LiteOn drive has its latest available firmware. The Mac is using OS 9.

 

[Mercutio]

Tried installing Toast (or something similar) yet?
Windows 98 and 2000 call 'em CD-ROMs, too.

 

[CityK]

He has iTunes installed. When you click on the "burn CD" icon, it generates an error that reports something to the effect that there is missing hardware or software.

Looking at the Apple system info (whatever Mac's Device Manager counterpart is called) says LiteOn CD-rom, reports correct firmware version and model name.

But burning is a no go.

The drive works perfectly fine when installed in my PC.

CK

 

[CityK]

sorry, I should add that he isn't connected to the internet currently, so downloading and installing different software is a problem.

Additionally, my monitor (which itself is a backup) is dying so I have limited windows of opportunity to get online and get things, research or test things for him before I'm headless for an hour or so (at which point the monitor will function again for another 15 minutes or so.....replacement LCD on order...can't .... hold out ... much ..lon..................................................

CK

 

[CityK]

Merc, I think your probably right about the way CD drives are reported.

I'm thinking that his version of iTunes has crippled 3rd party burner suport. I'm going to try to get Toast for him and see how that goes.

Question: if I d/l Toast and burn it to disk for him, how should I format the CD? What format is Mac compatible with?

 

[CityK]

Err, Toast looks a little pricey.

As for the CD-R fomating problem, this and this would seem to indicate that it can be done.

I have my buddy's mac at my place now (and his monitor, which I currently have hooked up to my computer...Horray! I can use my machine for longer then 10minutes now! ) and am going to try to figure something out with it. I'm not too surprised about itunes not recognizing the burner, as he has the very ancient version 1.0 installed ... whereas the current offering is v4.1 .

This might turn out to be rather adventurous trying to find something suitable that will run on his platform, and getting it to install properly - I really have no clue on how Mac software installs or uninstalls....





Unfortunately, the new iTunes release appears to support only OS X version something and later. My friend has OS 9.0.4 installed.

 

[EdwardK]

Hi CityK,

I'm afraid the writing capablities of that LiteOn drive is not supported by iTunes.
Here is the link and snippet from the Apple site on supported drives for iTunes version 1.1:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60806

This following list of compatible drives is included with the iTunes 1.1 Read Me file.

These CD drive mechanisms are supported:

LG (CD-RW CED-8042B)
Matshita (CD-RW CW-7121, CD-RW CW-7586, UJDA310)
Mitsumi (CR-4802TE, CR-4804TE)
Philips Iomega (CDD4801 CD-R/RW, ZIPCD 650)
Pioneer (DVD-RW DVR-103)
Plextor (CD-R PXW1210A, CD-R PX-W8432T, CD-R PX-W8220T, CD-R PX-W124TS)
Ricoh (CD-R/RW RW8040A)
Samsung QPS (CD-R/RW SW-208B)
Sanyo LaCie (CDBP-121032, CDBP-161040, CRD-BP1300P)
Sony (CD-RW CRX140E, CD-RW CRX700E, CD-RW CRX140, CD-RW CRX145, CD-RW CRX160, CD-RW CRX700, CD-RW CRX10U)
Teac (CD-W24E)
Yamaha (CRW4416, CRW6416, CRW8424, CRW8824, CRW2100)




You might have to try Merc's suggestion and see if Toast works or not.

Cheers,
Edward

 

[CityK]

Thanks EdwardK. I actually came across the same info last night on my own.

What I discovered was that in order to burn discs with older versions of iTunes (and this may still be the case with v4.1, but I kind of suspect things are different now with OS X) you have to have the "Authoring Support software", and a supported CD-RW drive. This certainly explains the error that was occuring, as reported earlier.

The furthest update/upgrade path I can take here with this machine is:

- Follow the OS 9 update path from v9.0.4 to v9.2.2.
- Update his version of iTunes to v2.0.4 (Mac OS 9.0.4 is required; Mac OS 9.2.1 or later is recommended).
- Update (err, I mean add) the Authoring software to v1.1.9 (Mac OS 9.2.2 required)

However, at this point, iTunes will still not natively support the LiteOn burner. Alas, this brick wall can be overcome by hacking a LiteOn Plugin, or for any other unsupported drive for that matter. Information explaining how to do so is found on the following pages of the xlr8yourmac website: here, here, and lots of info available from users by typing in the appropriate drive here. Or to avoid all that reading and hassle, you could just try out one of the already submited user hacks for your drive, which are available here.

But reading through a bunch of stuff (most notibly the user reponses found from the database), I get a clear picture that iTunes blows in comparison to Toast. Furthermore, Toast 5 (which requires Mac OS 9.1 or later) supports virtually every IDE burner right out of the box. Thankfully, my friend is getting a legitimate CD of Toast v5.0.2 for free from someone he knows who now uses OS X and Toast 6. Updating v5.0.2 to v5.2.3 should be easy enough, and would bring full support to the burner (i.e. 52x CD-R recording), as from what I've read v5.0.2 only supports up to 40x writing.

So, in the end analysis, the ol' bloodhound that we all know as Mercutio, has once again picked up the trail of the problem and pointed us in the right direction.

.....

Now I just got to go figure out the Windows-to-Mac CD formating thing.

CK

 

[Mercutio]

Macs read ISO9660 CDs, just like everything else. I strongly suspect they support Joliet extensions as well. UNIX systems needs Rock Ridge extentions but Linux can handle Joliet without any problem.

 

[CityK]

Macs read ISO9660 CDs, just like everything else.

Yep, just like it says in my earlier link. Unfortunately, I was going through things in too much haste yesterday and misinterpreted what I read. For starters, I didn't clue into the goal behind the title, "How do I make my CD-ROM work on the Mac, WinNT, and UNIX". Second, I think I must of skimmed through the first line:

This is a tricky one because of issues with long filenames and file attributes. Mac CD-ROMs are typically burned with an HFS filesystem, not ISO-9660

and then thought to myself "Oh great, now I have to figure this HFS stuff out", without reading and paying attention to the rest of the CD-R FAQ link info; specifically:

The easiest way to create a disc that will work on all platforms is to use plain level 1 ISO-9660, with 8+3 filenames and no special file attributes

Doh!

I strongly suspect they support Joliet extensions as well.

I think I read that OS X does, but I don't think OS 9 does.

I got to admit, I've learned far more about Macs within the last two days then I ever would have suspected. I don't think any of that knowledge is particularly useful for me, but hey somethings got to keep the synaptic junctions firing.

 

[Mercutio]

Joliet reads just like ISO9660 on OS9. 8.3.

The pain of DOS will live for eternity.

 

[timwhit]

Isn't there anyway to convince your friend to upgrade to OS X? It really is a nice upgrade. Plus, there still is the possibility to dual boot the system.

 

[CityK]

That would be ideal Tim, but at the moment he really doesn't have the cash to spare for the OS, more mem etc. etc ... (a kind of down and out story - broke up with fiance, didn't have anything saved up, quit job, moved from B.C back into his parents, a few bills to pay, just started working again, yada yada yada ....) As it stands, his computer only has 96MB of PC-100 (he had 64, but I was able to give him a 32MB stick from a curbside system that I cannibalized this past summer). He's working on getting a broadband connection soon, and more upgrades will follow once he starts to gain some further disposable income. For the time being he's just itching to hear music and a burner was a necessiity. Its just unfortunate that its been a bit of a hassle to get things going with it. But I'm pretty sure that by the end of tommorow he's going to be a pretty happy camper.

The pain of DOS will live for eternity.

Speaking of antiqutated systems of great longevity, I was reading last week that Phoenix has been piping that they are about to revolutionize the BIOS as we know it.

CK