Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives: Motoring Computer Related forum

Computer Related > Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives	Computing Issues
Thread Author: Mike Hannon	Replies: 6

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Thu 12 Apr 12 11:04

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - Mike Hannon

The combo and DVD drives on my old G4 are not working and when I click on the eject icon at the top of the screen the machine says they are not there. I've tried resetting the PRAM and had a look inside the case, where all the power wiring seems ok.
Is this perhaps a software or hardware issue - and is it time for me to move on from the early Noughties?

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Thu 12 Apr 12 11:56

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - rtj70

If you select About This Mac from the menu and then click on More Info... do either drive get listed under Disc Burning? Also can access System Information from the dock via Applications/Utilities/System Information.

If the old Mac does everything you want and it's only these drives causing a problem then you could always replace the drives or get an external USB one.

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Fri 13 Apr 12 11:18

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - Zero

does the drawer open and close?

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Fri 13 Apr 12 14:38

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - Rudedog

I assumed that this G4 was a Powerbook and therefore wouldn't have a drawer.

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Fri 13 Apr 12 15:36

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - rtj70

I assumed the G4 of the nineties variety was a tower myself. And very slow and old. He mentions combo and DVD drives - i.e. two.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Apple_G4_400_Mhz_6892.jpg/200px-Apple_G4_400_Mhz_6892.jpg

But then I think Mike mentions early nineties and this came out late nineties.

Edit: I see he mentions early noughties so likely to be one of the old Power Macs.

Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 13 Apr 12 at 15:37

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Tue 17 Apr 12 12:30

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - Mike Hannon

It's a 2002 Power Mac G4 with 'mirror doors' for the drives and 2x867mhz processors.
Yesterday, quite out of the blue, the computer signalled that the drives were present, after a very slow response to a click on the icon, and the 'superdrive' opened and closed as normal. Today, clicking on the icon shows 'no drives' again.
I know it's old and slow but I really am not sufficiently interested in chasing specs, etc, so I'll probably buy a a three or four-year-old G5 iMac. It just seems a shame to dump what is otherwise a perfectly adequate machine while everything else is working. I like the high-quality engineering and construction.
I just thought there might be a system reset procedure or something. I've tried resetting the PRAM but that didn't work.

Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Tue 17 Apr 12 at 12:31

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Tue 17 Apr 12 13:59

Mac G4 doesn't recognise its combo and DVD drives - rtj70

If it's only the drives then either replace them or get a cheap USB DVD writer.

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