external cd drive not recognized

[mjbjohn]

I have tried with a disk in the drive and the result is the same. The drive does show that it is powered but the drive does not show up in disk utility.

[DeltaMac]

I am most impressed by the fact that you say that the external drive does not show in your System Profiler, under the USB tab. If the drive has power, and is connected to a working USB port on your MacBook, then it should appear in your System Profiler (even if it doesn't appear as a valid device in your Disk Utility.)
Here's one way that I would verify this:
Leave the drive disconnected, and open the System Profiler/USB tab.
Plug in the drive to your MacBook (check that the drive actually has power), then press Command-R, which will refresh the device list. Watch for any changes in the USB listing, even if it doesn't appear to be a CD or DVD device.
Does the USB listing change in any way?

[mjbjohn]

it says USB to IDE. I tried it by connecting to the laptop directly and via the new hub and same change; the external drive is not listed and it still does not show up in disk utility

[DeltaMac]

I think what is happening is - your system is seeing the device, but there's no OS X support for that particular device interface - you can "view it, but not use it!", and without driver support, the interface does not pass through the actual drive information that you need.
You have an old version of OS X - 10.4 was replaced by 10.5 in the fall of 2007.
Could be that your external drive hardware may be compatible with OS X, but 10.5 or higher only.

[mjbjohn]

I ended up having to take it into an Apple Store where they loaded snow leopard on.
Now the external drive shows up and works fine.
Thanks for your help

[peterr77]

Try your external drive in a different computer. It doesn't have to be a Mac, and you need to find out if it does work on another computer