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2008 Second Optical Drive

N

Nick 214

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 11, 2010
31
0
Pittsburgh/Slippery Rock, PA
Hey everyone,

I'm an audiophile (ducks from tomatoes) and I wanted to get a great CD drive for the purposes of ripping only. I decided on the Asus CD-S520/A4, since it seems to be the best non-SCSI drive out there... It's IDE, so I wired it up in my second bay. I had it set for Cable Select and System Profile(r) recognized it, but it won't appear in Disk Utility (and therefore, work).

I switched it to Slave, and the Superdrive to Master, but, alas, no dice.

I'm currently on my 10.5.8 volume, since I'm waiting for Newegg to deliver my new drives for the 10.6.x RAID. Will an up to Snow fix this, or is it simply a legacy drive that just burnt some cash away...

NK

UPDATE: Here's some pics to help illustrate...

picture.php


Looks fine(?) in the device tree.

picture.php


Not so much in DU... :(
 
Last edited:
Isn't digital digital? I didn't even realize it made a difference what type of drive you use? :confused:
 
Nick 214 said:
Hey everyone,

I'm an audiophile (ducks from tomatoes) and I wanted to get a great CD drive for the purposes of ripping only. I decided on the Asus CD-S520/A4, since it seems to be the best non-SCSI drive out there... It's IDE, so I wired it up in my second bay. I had it set for Cable Select and System Profile(r) recognized it, but it won't appear in Disk Utility (and therefore, work).

I switched it to Slave, and the Superdrive to Master, but, alas, no dice.

I'm currently on my 10.5.8 volume, since I'm waiting for Newegg to deliver my new drives for the 10.6.x RAID. Will an up to Snow fix this, or is it simply a legacy drive that just burnt some cash away...

NK
Click to expand...

If your Mac is the G5 in your sig you can't upgrade to 10.6.

You may need something like this:
http://www.patchburn.de/

I have not needed it in quite a while and most DVD drives work for me but maybe the PPC and 10.5.8 require new device codes to get it working. There are no released drivers I could find for OS X. Looked like Win only. However the patching usually only nets you iLife burning capabilities. It's worth a look and it did work for some plextor drives I needed working back in 2006 or so.
 
derbothaus said:
If your Mac is the G5 in your sig you can't upgrade to 10.6.

You may need something like this:
http://www.patchburn.de/

I have not needed it in quite a while and most DVD drives work for me but maybe the PPC and 10.5.8 require new device codes to get it working. There are no released drivers I could find for OS X. Looked like Win only. However the patching usually only nets you iLife burning capabilities. It's worth a look and it did work for some plextor drives I needed working back in 2006 or so.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try it out now. I do need to update that sig... :eek:

NK
 
drewsof07 said:
Isn't digital digital? I didn't even realize it made a difference what type of drive you use? :confused:
Click to expand...

Audiophiles think Firewire cables matter on the "robustness" of sound. I would think the source sacred. But yeah, digital is digital. It's really about the quality on the way out (DA) that matters to me. Outside of errors in ripping of course.
 
derbothaus said:
Audiophiles think Firewire cables matter on the "robustness" of sound. I would think the source sacred. But yeah, digital is digital. It's really about the quality on the way out (DA) that matters to me. Outside of errors in ripping of course.
Click to expand...

We're getting to why I hoped to keep this thread just on the drive issue, lol... I'm over the whole "audiophile" flaming jazz (not that you're initiating).

NK

----------

Addendum: Patch Burn won't run on 10.5, and there is no use even thinking about .6 or .7
:(

NK
 
Nick 214 said:
We're getting to why I hoped to keep this thread just on the drive issue, lol... I'm over the whole "audiophile" flaming jazz (not that you're initiating).

NK
Click to expand...

Not flaming at all just letting it be known that it does matter to some people and a decently rated ripper is a worthwhile investment if the quality matters. Be it for error free or incurred sound quality enhancement.

----------
Nick 214 said:
We're getting to why I hoped to keep this thread just on the drive issue, lol... I'm over the whole "audiophile" flaming jazz (not that you're initiating).

NK

----------

Addendum: Patch Burn won't run on 10.5, and there is no use even thinking about .6 or .7
:(

NK
Click to expand...

Sorry man. I read the 10.3-Later as 10.5-Later.
Try some firmware searches. They have stuff like this littered about.
http://lasvegas.rpc1.org/

That's only for Pioneer but maybe...

Also why not use a 3rd party ripper like Toast or something. You may find a 3rd party app with a demo and maybe it can use the Asus.
 
derbothaus said:
Not flaming at all just letting it be known that it does matter to some people and a decently rated ripper is a worthwhile investment if the quality matters. Be it for error free or incurred sound quality enhancement.

I gotcha, it's all good. :cool:

----------



Sorry man. I read the 10.3-Later as 10.5-Later.
Try some firmware searches. They have stuff like this littered about.
http://lasvegas.rpc1.org/

That's only for Pioneer but maybe...

Also why not use a 3rd party ripper like Toast or something. You may find a 3rd party app with a demo and maybe it can use the Asus.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a plan, but I still don't see why the OSX architecture isn't "seeing it" beyond profiler.

Hmmm

NK
 
Nick 214 said:
I'm mostly concerned about jitter and ripping errors... The former is a hot debate, but the latter is a very real problem. With a 230GB iTunes library, I like to get it right ;)

NK
Click to expand...

Still no need for a second drive. Use XLD to do the ripping - it'll compare it with the AccurateRip database and highlight any errors.
 
Fair point - I mis-read your post. Might still be worth using XLD anyway, just to make sure that the rips are good. It's caught a few CDs that have needed cleaning for me in the past.
 
just grabbed a SL disc and took the machine to 10.6.8 - no change... :(

NK

Booting into k64 makes no difference, though I thought I may as well try. A FB friend suggested that I hook it up to a Windows machine and check the firmware... Would doing so and reinserting it into OSX solve this?

I suppose I could also just buy a 5.25" external drive and drop it in, but that would kill the form factor of the MP!
 
Last edited:
Nick 214 said:
just grabbed a SL disc and took the machine to 10.6.8 - no change... :(

NK

Booting into k64 makes no difference, though I thought I may as well try. A FB friend suggested that I hook it up to a Windows machine and check the firmware... Would doing so and reinserting it into OSX solve this?

I suppose I could also just buy a 5.25" external drive and drop it in, but that would kill the form factor of the MP!
Click to expand...

Most likely will not solve as OS X needs the correct device ID to be used by it's internal apps such as Finder and Disk Utility. The drive is seen on the bus so you need an app that can see it. You may be SOL on OS X tools using it without an industrious hack or learn how to construct device ID's and ingest.
 
And so the plot thickens...

picture.php


I inserted a CD by taking off the cover, pulling the tray, etc.... And it worked! iTunes read and reported all fine. But I still can't get the system to recognize the drive as an ejectable media, which defeats the purpose of installing it inside of the MP.

NK
 
sounds trippy... did you look on the drives manufacrorers webby for updated firmware? either that or the drive is defunkt, and id return it and try another. :)

hang on, did i just read that it shows up in the device tree and you can read disks with it??

if thats the case, does it show up in Disk utils? (put the Snowy disk in the drive and boot from that) and see if it works.. if it does, your Snowy install is on the blink. :)
 
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