Acceptable Media for older iMac

K

KenDRhyD

Registered
I have a 17" G4 iMac with a Pioneer 106D super drive, and I am having some difficulty finding DVD media that is supported in this drive.

I can load and use most CD media, but all of the DVD media that I have purchased recently is not recognized by this drive! I have tried DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW media from several manufacturers, but none of them are recognized.

I have 1-2 pieces of older Verbatim DVD-R media, and this seems to be recognized, but at least one piece of more recently purchased DVD-R by Verbatim was not recognized.

Does anyone know of any specifc media that should work in this drive?
 
eric2006 said:
Are you sure that it's not a 15" iMac? There's a superdrive firmware upgrade out for them:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120161

SuperDrives burn DVD-R's, if your superdrive won't, then
a. your superdrive is toast
b. the disks are junk
c. your installation has problems
Click to expand...

Yes, I am positive that it is a 17" iMac. I also have a 15" iMac, but it has an older super drive (a 103D, I believe). This is a 106D drive, and it will burn some DVDs, but not most of the newer media that I purchase.
 
Have you installed the firmware on this page?

Has the superdrive ever worked with the current installation? Is this an upgraded drive?
 
eric2006 said:
Have you installed the firmware on this page?

Has the superdrive ever worked with the current installation? Is this an upgraded drive?
Click to expand...

My super drive identifies itself as a "Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-106D" running revision A606 firmware on an ATAPI bus.

The closest I see on the web site is a DVR-A06U unit, which looks similar; this drive has a "DVR-A06 firmware update to version 1.08" upgrade utility, but it appears to be for Windows only -- there is no reference to a Mac OS update tool, or confirmation this is the correct drive.
 
Has the superdrive ever worked with the current installation? Is this an upgraded drive?

If it just stopped working, I'm inclined to believe that you have a hardware failure. For replacement, any standard DVD burner should work, just make sure you can return it.
 
eric2006 said:
Has the superdrive ever worked with the current installation? Is this an upgraded drive?

If it just stopped working, I'm inclined to believe that you have a hardware failure. For replacement, any standard DVD burner should work, just make sure you can return it.
Click to expand...

The drive in this computer has been working fine, for both CD and DVD media. I have some older DVD media (1-2 pieces of DVD-R and 2 pieces of DVD-RW) that are recognized fine. I have been able to burn and erase the DVD-RW media without issue. This older media is Verbatim brand, which I have been having some difficulty locating. All of that media is the end of some stock that I had purchased some time ago (almost 2 years past).

The drive is the original drive, and I have never explicitly updated the firmware, unless a software update did that for me. I can find no superdrive update on the Apple web site that will install on this computer -- all of the installers report that they are not compatible with this iMac.

New CD media works fine and the drive is recognizing my existing stock of DVD media.

The DVD-R and DVD-RW media that I purchased in the past week is the problem. If I simply insert blank media, it spits out; if I load Toast and ask it to erase a piece of new DVD-RW media, it reports no media in the drive; the old DVD media works.
 
Your mac should burn DVD-R's, so, as I said, this is possibly:
a. bad media (unlikely, given you've tried several manufacturers)
b. breaking superdrive (a burner slowly breaking down slowly like this is not uncommon)
c. a corrupt installation (try a fresh system?)
 
eric2006 said:
Your mac should burn DVD-R's, so, as I said, this is possibly:
a. bad media (unlikely, given you've tried several manufacturers)
b. breaking superdrive (a burner slowly breaking down slowly like this is not uncommon)
c. a corrupt installation (try a fresh system?)
Click to expand...

I do not believe that the new medi ais 'corrup', that the drive is 'bad' nor that the installation is corrupt. After all, I can still burn CDs and I can burn and erase the older Verbatim DVD-RW media (I am loath to burn the Verbatim DVD-R as I only have a couple of piece left and I may need them soon).

The new media works in other drives in other (more modern) Macs that I have, but neither of them are Pioneer drives.

I shall simply shop around to see if I can find any of the Verbatim media, or some other media that will work.
 
It's not really.. normal for a Mac to only accept media from one brand. A DVD-R is a DVD-R. I could understand incompatibilities with one brand... but several? That's not normal, that's to say, a working drive wouldn't do that.

There are some other documented failures with this drive, and it looks like spraying the inside of the drive with compressed air may help. Just make sure you get air meant for computers, anti-static stuff.

Here's the verbatim website, you could try getting their stuff:
http://www.verbatim.com/
 
eric2006 said:
It's not really.. normal for a Mac to only accept media from one brand. A DVD-R is a DVD-R. I could understand incompatibilities with one brand... but several? That's not normal, that's to say, a working drive wouldn't do that.

There are some other documented failures with this drive, and it looks like spraying the inside of the drive with compressed air may help. Just make sure you get air meant for computers, anti-static stuff.

Here's the verbatim website, you could try getting their stuff:
http://www.verbatim.com/
Click to expand...

Well, I have prety much convinced myself that it is actually the media that is the issue. Yesterday my wife picked up some Sony DVD-R 1-16x media, and the 106D drive recognized it properly! With the other media it spit it out or indicated that the drive was empty, but with the Sony media it reported that the capacity of the media.

So, until I upgrade the systems at home I shall focus on Sony media.
 
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