# Powerbook G4 CD/DVD drive not recognized



## covertrussian (May 10, 2007)

Hello,

This issue has been destroying my brain.

I'm going to try to explain the issue in as much detail as I possibly can 

I have two 15" Powerbook G4's, 1.67GHz, one has a Toshiba 80 GB hard drive (Powerbook 1), another one has a Toshiba 60 GB hard drive (Powerbook 2).

Powerbook 1: The super drive on the 80GB hard drive takes CD's/DVD's but does not eject them, or recognize them.  In System Profiler the Disc Burning section says "No burning device was found. If you are using an external device please make sure that it is connected and powered properly".  I cannot boot of this CD drive or anything.

Powerbook 2: Now the 60GB Powerbook works flawlessly, even though it has a non-oem Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-845S drive.

I had to take the 60GB hd out of Powerbook 2 and install it into Powerbook 1.  The darnest thing happened, Powerbook 1's CD drive started working without a problem. Powerbook 2 is now with the 80GB hard drive and without a functional CD drive.

I put the 60GB HD back into Powerbook 2, and the CD drive started working again.  I put the 60GB HD into Powerbook 1 and  left put it together because it is fully functional.

Now I have the Powerbook 2 that still has problems with the cd drive.

I have tried using 2-3 other hard drives (they were from windows machines though), still no luck on getting the CD drive to work.

If I disconnect the 80GB Hard Drive, then I can boot from the CD drive.  I just unplugged the internal hard drive, and attached another Powerbook (this one is 17"), and booted the 17" inch one into firewire mode, then started the Powerbook 2 and booted into the firewire HD.

Now I'm looking at the System Profiler, and I'm seeing the disc burner.

My conclusions to this issue:
It seems like all of the hard drives, except the 60GB one, can't seem to run along with the cd drive.  This is not a motherboard or a CD drive problem, because both of the 15" computers can have everything working, depending on which hard drive is used.

I heard that these CD drives have an issue of being setup in Cable Select, instead of Master.  I tried using different firmware (I had to plug up the drive to a PC laptop and flashed the firmware with D100 firmware http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=2094 )

Please help me, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Extra Hard Drive information:
60GB Hard Drive: Toshiba MK6025GAS, DC+5V 0.7A
80GB Hard Drive: Toshiba MK8026GAX, DC+5v 1.0A


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## covertrussian (May 14, 2007)

I believe I found a fix for this.

It seems like the HD IDE cable was from an older Powerbook.  I will try to get a new one and see if that works.


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## raynman (May 11, 2009)

I realize this is an older thread, but I have a very similar situation in a powerbook G4 (1.67ghz, hi-res 15" screen) and I have nearly googled and posted myself silly trying to find an answer. I have a lot of experience inside powerbooks, ibooks and macbooks, and this one has me stumped

I bought the laptop non-working, installed a new power board (plug on old one was fried!) Installed a 250gb HD which I had installed OSX on in another G4 laptop, and it booted up fine, or so I thought.

When I put in my Leopard install DVD to install over the existing 10.4 Tiger, the disc spun up, but would not mount - would not eject - and when I checked the System Profiler  the superdrive was not recognized by the powerbook as being present on the ATA bus. The hard drive, of course, was seen on the ATA bus.

I thought the superdrive was bum, so I installed a known-working combo drive I had around from a previously parted laptop (Apple branded) and experienced EXACTLY the same situation.

I switched the optical drive cable - twice. No help.

Other things I have tried included using jumpers to manually set the hard drive to slave and cable select (from the factory, with no jumpers, it is set to master), thinking that perhaps the optical drive was somehow seen as master or cable select. All possible jumper settings I tried made no difference. 

Booting from external firewire hard drive shows exactly the same situation on the ATA bus, EXCEPT (and this is where it gets just weird enough to pique my curiosity and keep me trying to fix it) - When I boot from the external drive WITHOUT AN INTERNAL DRIVE installed, the SUPERDRIVE SHOWS UP ON THE ATA BUS of the System Profiler!  I have not yet seen both at the same time, but I can get one or the other to show, depending on, apparently, the presence of the internal hard drive.

After I found this thread, I tried a differnet hard drive ribbon cable. Alas - no go.

I also tried another hard drive - also no help.

Of course before all the hardware exercise, I did all the requisite PMU, PRAM, amd NVRAM resets with no improvement.

Am I missing something here, or am I to assume a fault in the IDE controller of the logic board?

I have never seen this laptop working properly, but the seller I acquired it from stated that the optical drive worked fine until he fried the DC in-board, presumably with a faulty power supply. He had removed his hard drive to save the data on it.

Thanks for any help or clues that anyone might provide.

Ray


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## covertrussian (May 11, 2009)

I think it might be your hard drive cable too.  1.67ghz models had a different idea cable, thus you must get one that's exactly for your computer.


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## raynman (May 12, 2009)

....as near as I can tell, anyway. ifixit and one other site had the same part number (I do not have it with me) for the cable, so I am assuming that the cable(s) is(are) correct, and probably both are working.

Ray


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## djackmac (May 12, 2009)

Do you have another powerbook to try to plug the optical drives that you had already tried to verify they still work? Maybe whatever fried the dc-in board shorted the logic board and made it so it is shorting and killing every optical drive you install in this thing?

Oops, just read further into your post and saw the part where superdrive is seen booting through firewire. Sounds like something really funky with the MLB either way?


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## cwags12 (Jun 18, 2010)

Raynman....I know its been awhile since replying/focusing on this thread, but I'm experiencing an identical issue to yours.  Did you ever find a fix ?

As far as I can tell, someone has taken apart my PBG$ HiRes 1.67ghz before.  And I know the Super Drives I'm testing with are in working condition, so I'm wondering if I have a hard drive cable imcompatibility issue.  Here are the relevant part #'s for the cables that are currently being used with my pbg4:
Optical Flex cable: 821-0392-A
HDD Flex/Connector cable: 821-0350-a

I'm pretty sure the optical cable is correct, but I'm unsure of the HDD Flex cable.  Any help/hints you can provide would be much appreciated!

I guess its possible its a rare issue with the Logic Board that might only be impacting the optical drive functionality, although I'm unsure.

Pulling my hair out...


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## raynman (Jun 18, 2010)

hey cwags12,

If I remember correctly, I had switched out every possible component that may have failed or intermittently failed, and some of them I switched twice (so I had tried three components)....    cables, optical drives, hard drives.

I had to google myself (can't believe I did that! "raynman powerbook G4" without quotes - first hit!) to find where I had posted the solution I came up with finally.  As it turns out, I got mine working, but I still don't really know how!

The thread I found where I had posted that I got it running, along with everything I did (and suggest you do) as well as some followup information, will be found here:

http://forums.macnn.com/69/mac-notebooks/391925/powerbook-g4-does-not-see-optical/

good luck, and let me know if any of this is helpful or, if not, what finally does work for you!

raynman


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## cwags12 (Jun 21, 2010)

Nice, my first order of work is to replace the existing hdd cable that's installed.  
Current hdd cable: 821-0350-A (922-5998; 922-6885)
Future hdd cable:  821-0391-A (922-7121)

http://www.ifixit.com/PowerBook-Par...h-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Bracket-Cable/IF154-092
http://www.ifixit.com/PowerBook-Parts/G4-Aluminum-15-Inch-Hard-Drive-Bracket-Cable/IF154-003

In summary, after seeing the differences in the 2 ifixit pages (above) I immediately noticed that I may have the incorrect hdd flex cable installed.  It explicitly mentions that there are different parts used for HDD Flex Cable for 1.67Ghz LoRes vs 1.67Ghz HiRes.  I figure I have to start there.  821-0391-A is being shipped to me currently, will let you know if it resolves the issue.


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## raynman (Jun 21, 2010)

...and do disc format, then a clean install from a retail OS disc, unless you happen to have the machine specific discs on hand - I did not.

good luck,

raynman


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## cwags12 (Jun 23, 2010)

Great news!!  The correct HDD cable replacement worked like a charm.  No reinstall or format needed at all.  I replaced the incorrect cable with 821-0391-A (922-7121), and upon restart the Optical & HDD drive were both working together perfectly.  821-0391-A (922-7121) is an HDD cable that's made specifically for the A1138 1.67Ghz HiRes model.

Clearly, someone did some work on this 15" Powerbook G4 previously, and used an HDD cable from an older model 15" PBG4 instead of the correct one that's specific to the A1138 model.  

Thanks for all your help, hoping this thread helps someone with a similar issue in the future !


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## raynman (Jun 23, 2010)

I'm glad you got your powerbook figured out!

I guess if you don't know the history on a computer, you need to presume that ANYTHING could be the fault when you go troubleshooting a problem.

raynman


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## maxheadroom (Oct 30, 2011)

Hi Rayman,
Same problem- but my dvd is still in the drive. Whirring up at every on, but how can I get it out again? Thanks


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## DeltaMac (Oct 30, 2011)

The normal 'emergency' eject for an optical disk on a Mac:
Restart, while holding your trackpad button.
Continue to hold the trackpad button down, until the disk ejects.
That should happen a few seconds after the screen lights up.


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