My External DVD drive no longer shows.

5 Jun 2017 16:13:33

Rick Churchill

When I bought my Macbook Pro I realised I would have to buy an external DVD drive (and an external analogue to digital audio input device) as Apple had kindly removed these pieces of hardware.

However recently I have not been able to find my LG DVD writer drive. I have tried several discs. It does not show up on the desktop or in disc utilities mounted or unmounted.

I have File sharing and Printer sharing ticked in System Prefs>Sharing and Extn disk and CDs, DVDs and iPods ticked in Finder Prefs.

Any ideas?

I may be late in responding to any replies as I am about to go on holiday but wanted to move a video sequence from my TV recorder via DVD to my computer and thence to my iPhone. (I may try holding my iPhone up in front of the TV screen for 10 minutes!)

Re: My External DVD drive no longer shows.

5 Jun 2017 22:23:42

Tony Still

Rick,

I presume that you have a USB DVD drive, directly connected to the MacBook and that the A-to-D is for some other purpose. The drive will only show up when it has a disc in it. It should then show in the Finder sidebar (amongst other places) but check Finder's preferences (Sidebar tab) because it can be turned off. It may pop up a dialogue to let you set the system action associated with the class of disc.

At a lower level, you can check that the device has correctly connected by opening System Information (quickest route is to Option-click 'About this Mac' on the Apple menu). Click 'USB' in the sidebar (you may need to expand the 'Hardware' section first). At the top of the display, you should see a display of the 'USB Device Tree'.

All USB devices that the system is controlling appear here; your drive will likely have an obvious name and the list will be quite short. My external drive shows as 'Apple USB SuperDrive' (but it is a first-party device).

If neither of these acknowledge your drive, you probably have a hardware incompatibility or fault. Does the drive work with another computer? With a Windows machine?

Re: My External DVD drive no longer shows.

15 Jun 2017 14:21:30

Rick Churchill

Thanks Tony. Unfortunately the DVD driver does not show up under System Preferences and it works on my PC. When I bought it a year ago it worked on the Mac (a couple of OS upgrades ago). I've tried it in both USB ports but although it fires up and spins the disc the audio CD I have in there to test does not show up.

Re: My External DVD drive no longer shows.

15 Jun 2017 22:00:56

Tony Still

Hi Rick,

One last check: have a look in System Prefs at CDs & DVDs and check the action set. The support page here may help.

Re: My External DVD drive no longer shows.

20 Jun 2017 09:10:52

Rick Churchill

Thanks Tony. No I have them ticked.

I got round the problem by copying part of the recorded broadcast on my Panasonic PVR/DVD writer to disc. Transferring the disc to my PC and copying the file to flash drive. Transferring the flash drive to my Macbook. Putting the file into iTunes and copying to my iPhone. (a simple process!)