Failing to read OSX Tiger CD

A

Ashleigh

Registered
As the title suggests, my machine has stopped reading the Mac OSX CD. And suprise suprise, I need it for reasons I won't go into.

When inserting the disk, there is no reaction.
Upon a restart it spins up the disk, sits on a blank white screen for a few minutes, spits it out and boots as normal.

A few 'FYIs'
This machine has read the disk before as OSX was installed from it.
The disk is a bog standard OSX 10.4.6 installation disk.
I have swapped the old CD drive that came with this machine with a new DVD+RW one.
This drive recognizes all other CDs, DVDs and can burn without a problem, so I don't think its related to the drive. However it is the only thing I can think of that has changed, I just hope it isn't as the original drive has gone...​
The machine is (wait for it) an old PowerMac G4 (sawtooth (AGP Graphics) that I am 'doing up' Right now it has 300mhz CPU and 128mb RAM, standard Rage (rubbish) graphics card. I think this is irrelevant as everything runs suprisingly smooth for the specs and I have had no problems besides this. But I thought I'd post it just incase.

I would like some help/info as to why this is happening and how to fix it.

Thank you for your time.
 
Think you may need a lot more RAM to run Tiger than what you say you have.

Also, are you sure your new drive is bootable on a Mac? For more information, a good place to look is xlr8yourmac.com.
 
Even if the drive isn't bootable, the disc should show on the Desktop when inserted as any other disc would.
 
And if it doesn't, that probably means the CD (or rather DVD) is unreadable.
 
I know there isn't technically enough RAM to run Tiger (minimum of 256), however it seems to work darn well :) I have purchased two 512mb RAMs that should ba arriving soon. Then its a CPU upgrade.

The disk is readable as I have used it before. I don't suppose apple have somehow made the disk unreadable after using it to install do they?!

It does not show on the desktop, any other disk does. Which is odd... Also, after trying the iWorks demo that came with the OS, that is apparently a 'blank DVD' I've tryed another DVD and it worked without a hitch.

I will check up on the drive I have now, I just hope its on that list as the original apple one is now gone. I was under the impression that if a drive 'worked', it *worked*.

EDIT:
That can't be good...
Accelerate Your Mac! Drive Database - Search Results
Report Date: Sunday, February 25, 2007
Drive Type: DVD+RW
Interface Type: All Interface Types
Mac Model: Apple G4 AGP Slot
There are currently no reports in the database that match your search parameters. Try back soo
Click to expand...

Thank you for your contributions.
 
Try de-selecting the Drive Type, just enter your Mac model at xlr8. There are over a hundred reviews. Or just enter your optical drive model.

BTW, have you examined the disc for scratches/figerprints?
 
A disc can very well _become_ unreadable with time. Scratches and smudges "help" a disc to become unreadable, but there could be other factors - even a failure in production of some kind (although I haven't heard of one with the Tiger disks.)

If _all_ discs (or most disks) work with a drive, but one doesn't - however good it worked before, it 99.9999999% means the disc is bad _now_.
 
Guess a good way to check would be to try the disk in someone else's Mac.

If it's bad, Apple should exchange it.
 
10.4.6 installation disc?
Where did that come from? Was it a separately purchased version of OS X that says it would install on PPC? Or a gray, CPU specific one? (Trying to remember if they shipped the PPC 10.4.6 version..)
 
The disk has no marks, is about two weeks old and was bought seperately from a computer store (PC World (UK))

As Fryke said, as other disks work its very suspiciouse.

I will try it in my brothers mac, and hope that it doesn't work.

I will also read up more about my drive, though its looking less and less likely to be the case.

Thank you all for your time and help.

EDIT: It seems this drive isn't bootable. So I need to buy another one. I suppose this is sort of another topic, but I don't suppose you know where any DVD+RW can be purchased that are below $90 (and ship to the UK?) As my google-fu seems to have failed me, everything I turn out are over £80 (~$160)
Oh and yes, needs to work with a PowerMac G4 (AGP Graphics/Sawtooth)
 
My Mac Mini's drive got pooched (only reads DVDs a little bit, spits out CDs instantly). ANYWAYS ... I installed Tiger off of an external usb drive without problems - so it can't be a case of Apple checking the drive firmware.

But I'd concur with Fryke - if all DVDs work in this drive except this install DVD -- then the issue is the Install DVD. Otherwise, the drive is having issues.
 
Ashleigh, if it turns out you really do need a new optical drive to boot your Mac, MCE offers one for $59. Dunno whether they ship to the UK, but I would bet they do. Anyway you can ask them if so and how long it would take, they have pretty decent customer service. Their American dealers do ship internationally, but are asking a stiff mark-up so I would try ordering from the MCI Store first.

Got my burner from them and it works a treat.
 
I will take a look at that link andychrist, thank you, it is much appreciated.

The disk works in my brothers mac, boots and everything. So yep, its the drive. Oh well it was cheap, and $59 is nothing over here, even if the postage to the UK costs $40, its still only about £60 to me :) The prices they are asking at English stores are ridiculouse!
Oh, there won't be any problems with NTFC and PAL (DVD Regions) on these things will there? Some previouse drives I have used don't care about it, others do... I took a brief read and didn't find anything about it, but judging as its from America it will be region 1 right? Or is it the DVD player software that dictates what region is allowed to play?
As you can tell, I'm not the hardware type person, so I'm sorry for all the questions.

Thank you all.
 
If you can get access to you brothers Mac try to connect it to your Mac and put you mac in Firewire disk mode. This way you can use your brother's Mac to install Tiger on that drive.
 
Oh I forgot about the wonderful Import Tax this country has. Forget it, its going to cost me about £100. I have manadged to temporarily solve my problem, just hope OSX doesn't crash or I'm in for it!

You have all been very helpful, thank you very much for all your help, it is really appreciated.

EDIT:
*Sigh* Guess not... Could anyone please point me to an X11 download for 10.4? Everytime I try I get "its on your CD" which is pretty useless to me. I thought I'd get my brother to install it on his, then drag and drop to here, you execute it, it jumps in the dock for a second, then disappears, applications that need it are still unusable. At about 300kb me thinks it went wrong. As its supposed to be about 41mb isn't it?
The fun continues.

Thanks.
 
Well with only 128 MB RAM I would not expect X11 to load. Wait until you get your new chips, you shouldn't have any problems then.
 
Still, at 300kb something went wrong.

Oh and according to XLR8:

Reviewer's Name: Steven Huang
Date Submitted: 10/6/2004
Drive Type: DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW Drives
Drive Interface: IDE
Drive Brand: Pioneer
Drive Model Number: DVR-106PB (4x DVD+R/-R/+RW/-RW, 16x CDR)
Driver Used: Apple Standard
Mac Model: Apple G4 AGP Slot
Mac OS Version: OS X
Reader Comments: works well under 10.2.8. shows up as fully supported in system profiler (but identified as "DVR-106D", while the sticker says "DVR-106PB"). (normal - the retail DVR-A0x models are also reported as DVR-10x (i.e. A03 = 103, A04 = 104, etc.)
plays commercial DVDs. was able to burn a DVD-R using iDVD.
did not test finder burning. did not test booting from CD.

Mike Comments: It's important to test for booting from cd on internal drives (probably ok in a modern mac but good to test/note.)
Click to expand...

Found that drive, currently going for a fiver, checked it out and thats what I get. "Didn't test booting" Yeah well... Great.

Looks like I'll be waiting a while for a fully functioning drive and X11. Those chips are taking a while, recieved an email about a hold up. Fun...

Well, thanks anyway guys, though if you've had eperience with that drive and know if it works or not, please tell me, I have 4 days to buy it :p
 
Maybe if your brother could burn the X11 package to disc you could install it from there-- wouldn't have to boot up from your drive for that. Still, don't expect X11 to actually work until you upgrade your RAM. 128 MB is just not enough to accomplish anything in Tiger!

Don't think that Pioneer would boot your machine, if memory serves. But have you considered just getting an external drive? Because Mac-bootable FW devices are a lot easier to come by than the internal ones. And as your OD already burns okay, you would only need an inexpensive combo drive for booting purposes.
 
Heh, tell me about it :) Should be upto speed soon. (1152mb RAM, soon to have 1.6ghz CPU (took me ages to find that thing!))

I'll try everything I can, at least it isn't life or death. Though it is an annoyance how the original apple one *ahem* ceased working, and this one doesn't boot. Ah well such is hardware :p

Thanks everyone for all the advice!
 
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