Powermac G4 MDD Drive Issue

[thesteakguy120]

After coming back to my Powermac G4 MDD now that I've got time, I've noticed that the os, in this case OS 9 doesn't seem to recognize either of the two disc drives, I know they still get power after testing the hidden eject button, but other than that there's basically nothing from the system itself. Any advice or information I could use to solve this issue would be much appreciated.

 

[Byrd]

Are they aftermarket drives, can you boot off them (hold down C after boot chime), have you set them as CS/slave/master?

 

[chrisdunderdale]

On this note, does anyone know which superdrive apple put in the MDD? I have the 2003 one that came with the CD-RW drive, and I want to upgrade to the DVD-RW superdrive to use iDVD. I know iDVD will not support 3rd party drives, so want to make sure I have the right make/model. Any advice appreciated.

 

[s_pupp]

On this note, does anyone know which superdrive apple put in the MDD? I have the 2003 one that came with the CD-RW drive, and I want to upgrade to the DVD-RW superdrive to use iDVD. I know iDVD will not support 3rd party drives, so want to make sure I have the right make/model. Any advice appreciated.

If I recall correctly, iDVD is compatible with the Pioneer DVR-107D I bought for my 2003 MDD G4. Compatibility with iDVD is the reason I bought that drive. I upgraded a few years later with a DVR-109D that also worked with iDVD, to the best of my recollection.

Based on the following quote, Perplexity AI seems to agree regarding the 107D: “Mac Compatibility: iDVD requires a Mac with a built-in Apple-supported SuperDrive. The Pioneer DVR-107 is recognized as an “Apple Supported” SuperDrive in systems like the G4 (MDD) running Mac OS X 10.3 or later.”

 

[chrisdunderdale]

thanks for the reply! I might put on the trading post, looking for one of those drives. thanks.

 

[jovianartifact]

Doesn’t the 3rd party drive patcher solve incompatibility problems? My MDD didn’t recognize my optical drive at first but I ran the patch utility and it worked after that.

 

[thesteakguy120]

Are they aftermarket drives, can you boot off them (hold down C after boot chime), have you set them as CS/slave/master?

(sorry for missing this for like two months) they are the original drives that came with the system, they worked previously when I installed os 9 onto it, but as of late they seem to have stopped being recognized, I haven't changed any jumper settings either, and I cannot boot from them either.

 

[chriscarruthers]

Have you tried doing a PMU reset? Drives can sometimes "disappear" if it gets upset for whatever reason.

 

[thesteakguy120]

Have you tried doing a PMU reset? Drives can sometimes "disappear" if it gets upset for whatever reason.

I'll give it a shot later today and report back

 

[mikes-macs]

I would also check out the ide cable that connects them to the logic board. Sometimes the cable gets a twist and then tares.

 

[thesteakguy120]

Update: reset the PMU, no change, also tried resetting the CMOS to no change as well, to note there's some light cable damage from the cable being mis set the last time i closed the case but none of the leads are severed.