LG external Optical Drive not burning DVDs

[Simont]

My system is a mid 2007 24" iMac with OS X 10.5.7.

The internal superdrive was giving me problems, so I took Brains' advice and purchased a USB 2.0/firewire 5 1/2" external enclosure ($75 for a nice solid aluminum unit Adelong Computers Zynet 5.25" External DVD Burner USB+Firewire IEEE1394 (240V Powered)) and an LG GH22NP20 burner unit (called a SuperMulti burner).

It assembled easily and was recogised by OS X. I've connected it via the firewire 400 port. System Profiler identifies the drive as having burn support (generic drive support).

The drive reads disks perfectly well but I haven't been able to burn DVDs in the finder or with the "Burn" application. It all appears to be fine until I press the burn button, when the unit reports that there is "insufficient space" on the disk. This problem is also reported by others at Apple - Support - Discussions - DVD burning problem LG Super Multi- .... When I use Disk Utility to examine the drive it says "Burn Support - Unsupported".

I've tried moving the jumper on the drive from master to cable select, but still no success. The drive's firmware version is the most recent from the LG web site (v1.03). Does anyone know for certain whether this particular LG drive model works with OS X?

The drive performs and burns perfectly in Windows 7 RC1 when I boot up the same iMac via Bootcamp. It uses the Microsoft generic driver.

My guess is that the Apple generic driver does not support the drive as well as the windows generic driver.

If I have to get another burner unit, can anyone recommend a 5 1/2" unit which they know is fully supported by the current Apple generic driver.

Regards

[Randallg]

Hi there, I have an ASUS DRW-1814BL burner in an external case and it burns fine including printing to Lightscribe disks.

[ClockWork]

Does it burn CD-Rs without problems?

Have you tried a lower burning speed - like 8x / 4x ?

What brand of DVD-R are you using?

[Randallg]

Originally Posted by ClockWork

Does it burn CD-Rs without problems?

Have you tried a lower burning speed - like 8x / 4x ?

What brand of DVD-R are you using?

Yeah it burns everything, haven't had the need to burn at slower speeds but don't know why it wouldn't work. I use mainly LG, Verbatim and TDK media.

[ClockWork]

First this:

Originally Posted by Simont

The drive reads disks perfectly well but I haven't been able to burn DVDs in the finder or with the "Burn" application. It all appears to be fine until I press the burn button, when the unit reports that there is "insufficient space" on the disk.

and then this:

Originally Posted by Randallg

Yeah it burns everything, haven't had the need to burn at slower speeds but don't know why it wouldn't work. I use mainly LG, Verbatim and TDK media.

Either it burns everything or it doesn't work. Which is it? ::

[Simont]

I think we're talking at cross purposes here.

Randall's ASUS drive works, my LG drive doesn't. Thanks for the suggestion of the ASUS Randall.

Changing the burn speed doesn't make any difference, because it never starts burning; ie it errors out before commencing.

I'm using TDK or Maxell DVD-Rs, single layer. Media is probably not the issue, as it never commences burning under Max OS, and burns perfectly well under Windows 7 with the same machine in Bootcamp.

An image of the System Profiler report for the drive is below:

and the Disk Utility report for the drive:

Simon

[ClockWork]

Not certain of your LG predicament, yet in the second image, it looks like you're trying to Erase a DVD-RW...

... so - is it really a DVD-RW, or is it a DVD-R disc ?

Also, burning without the handy use of Toast Titanium can be a right pain in the hole.

Here is a piece by piece description of the process I posted from a little while back, yet using an Audio CD, as an example in Disk Utility.

[Simont]

It's really a CD-R. You'll get that dialog if you put in a blank CD-R and select the disc in Disk Utility. You'll see that it says it can't erase this disk, that's because its not a -RW

Simon

[ClockWork]

Consider double-checking the external'sl IDE connections?

Either that - or enter System Preferences...
Click on: CDs & DVDs and switch it from: Open Disk Utility on both CDs and DVDs, to: Ask what to do - and then just open it in the Finder, drag items into it, and hit the Burn button.

[leon]

Why don't you try emailing the Patchburn guy and see what he says?
Patchburn Homepage

Also fill out and send an error report to Apple.

Are there any firmware updates available for the LG drive that you could apply to yours?

EDIT: After spending more time in google it appears the only solution at the moment is to get another drive that is compatible.

[Simont]

Hi Leon and Clockwork,

I can't burn from the Finder, I get the same error.

For completeness, Patchburn is no longer under development and the developer no longer answers his mail, apparently.

I have installed the most recent firmware available from the LG site.

I'll drop an error report to Apple, but this is already on their boards.

I'll try to exchange the drive, but I suspect that the shop only holds LGs.

Thanks,

Simon

[Simont]

Went back to Adelong Computers. They were happy to exchange the drive for another, but had only one other IDE burner, which was an LG GSA-H55N.

Took it home, installed it into the enclosure and bliss! It burns DVDs from the Finder, from iTunes and via Burn program. Disk Utility still reports the drive as burn unsupported, but nevertheless the drive appears solid for single layer DVD-Rs, and is much quieter and runs much cooler than the crappy internal Suprdrive in the iMac.

I'm very happy with the service I received from Adelong and with the nifty new Alu enclosure which I have on my desktop.

I can't recommend using an LG GH22NP20 burner; it appears to be not fully functional under the current OS X 10.5.7.

Simon

[KlaasVisser]

(+1 for Adelong Computers - I get all my extra bits and pieces from them - RAM and HDD upgrade for the basic Mac Mini I bought at the beginning of the year, and a number of Zynet enclosures. Prior to the Mac, got all my PC bits there as well.)

Sort of on topic ...

I recently resurrected an old LG GSA4040B for the DVDram capability, and, although I haven't yet tested under all scenarios, very happy with with the native OS X support.

System info show it as Apple Supported Drive, and lists all the formats I want.