eMac Firmware to burn DVD's
 

I have been burning DVD's on my emac. Recently, I am able to burn the discs - but they will not play in my emac and only will play in one of my DVD's players. I read that in order to burn to 16x DVD's, you need to update firmware. This something I need to do that would solve the problem?

What brand of burner is in your eMac? The manufacturer of that brand may have a firmware update. I'd suggest though that your best bet is to replace the present internal burner with the latest Pioneer - the 116D for ATA - or go completely with an external firewire burner and use your present internal one for CDs only.

It's a Pioneer and a did a firmware update. I found directions elsewhere on the net. Now I can't get the drive to even open!! Any thoughts?

what version of OS are you using?

10.3.9 - and I just looked in system profile. The DVD drive isn't even showing up anymore.

Then it seems likely that the firmware update was somehow bad. Can you try to re-update the firmware and see if that fixes the problem?

Trevor

No I can't because it doesn't even recognize the DVD drive now. How do I undo what I did?

Here what I think had to happen - the new firmware overwrote the old stuff and now doesn't work for whatever reason. Since the computer doesn't recognize the firmware - it doesn't think there is a DVD drive. I have no way of overwriting the old firmware because when I launch the program that I originally did that with it can't find the DVD drive. Is there any way to step back in time and undo what I did? I am desperate here!

1. What was the name of the new firmware and 2) when did you do the update? Do an exhaustive search using Cmd-F in Finder.

So why is the date of the update important? Because some of the firmware files may have obscure names that will make finding them difficult. You will need to click the Date Modified header in folders inside the Library and other System directories.

If and when found, kick the firmware stuff into the Trash, but don't delete - yet! Reboot your computer and check System Profiler to see if your Pioneer optical drive is recognised.

Restoring the original Pioneer software. You may in fact not need to do anything. Pioneer seem to work pretty much natively with OS X. However, if your optical drive is still not found by the System, we'll need to rethink a Plan B or C, eg. locate and load drivers appropriate to the model of disk drive.

The name - well it was just numbers and letters - and I can't find it. I updated yesterday. And I did a search for "DVD" and found a file from yesterday. I just moved it from the preferences folder to the desktop and restarted and that didn't work. What do I search for then?

How good is your memory? I mean, do you have good recall of those "numbers and letters"? If you can't remember them exactly, at least try two or three of them in Cmd-F. My problem from this distance is that I've no idea where the installer of the firmware might have put the files. Have you checked the Installer Log? Have you used Console > Logs?

It's my computer at home - so I'll try your suggestions tonight. Stay tuned!

I found the file names and did a search for them. They are no where to be found. What would I be looking for in Console > Logs?

Ok I did get into Console >Logs and I found something that is time stamped around the time I tried to update the firmware. It's talking about IOTA and /bin/bash/ - that help at all?

~/Library/Logs
There are various places to look eg. Crash Reporter, Disk Utility Log

However, looking back through your posts on this thread, I note at one stage you couldn't even "open the drive". I take from that that the drive physical is totally unresponsive, in other words, it's dead, no power, nothing. If so, goodness knows what the firmware update might have done to the drive. As I understand it, firmware is intended to removed regional blocking, but how that might alter something in the hardware I have no idea.

This is beginning now to look like a hardware issue if you cannot find any of the firmware update files that were installed. Unfortunately, getting at an optical drive inside an eMac is not for the faint-hearted, but if you want to give it a go, there are online resources. PM me if I can assist you in that respect. I repeat my advice from earlier too - consider replacing the optical drive altogether, or go external firewire.

If I can - and this is a big if - boot from the external usb cd drive I have, could I just wipe the whole computer and start over - would that solve the problem?

Unfortunately, boot from USB external is available only with Intel machines.

A full reinstall would indeed clear faulty files, but it would also delete all other material on the hard drive. I'm trying to put myself in your situation, and I guess all I could suggest/do would be to backup all the stuff I want to retain to an external hard or optical drive, and then do a full 'clean' install of Panther.

I have essentially nothing on this computer that I would need to save. I only use it to transfer video so I am totally cool with cleaning it off. The problem is that I have no way to install it off the disc - since I can't get the drive open. Any work arounds for that?

Just an external firewire optical drive. You may be able to hire or borrow one from your local/regional Mac support group (eg. we have in our nearest city a SeniorNet Mac group) from which external devices can be hired.

You've not indicated your financial situation, but honestly, the outlay for a used optical drive, and a firewire enclosure (2-hand) is not enormous.

The other option is to find a kind person who will let you use her/his computer to use as a boot machine with yours in Target mode (which is probably what an Apple service center would do). In other words, use another computer to install a fresh OS on your machine.

I do have a MacBook that I could use as you suggest to install the OS on the eMac. Problem is - I have no idea how to do that. Any suggestion?

Before you do any reinstalling, you need to confirm whether the DVD drive is functional or dead. Go to Apple menu > About this Mac > click on More Info, to get the System Profiler. This will tell you whether the DVD drive is visible & potentially functional.

It isn't showing in SYstem Profiler - but I am positive that is because of the firmware update. I burned a disc literally two minutes before I did the update. No question that it was the firmware.

So how do I do the reinstall?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode
http://guides.macrumors.com/Target_Disk_Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

So - when it rains it pours - the machine I want to boot from has a firewire port but the internal drive doesn't work on that one either. However, I do have a new powerbook without the firewire port. Do you think I could try doing this except connect the two computer via ethernet wire?

I only suggest that as when I bought this new macbook - I hooked up the macbook to the old machinr via ethernet and it copied all my files, programs, passwords, settings etc to the new macbook.

BTW, I don't think erasing and reinstalling would make the drive work...?

Doesn't a firmware upgrade change the firmware on the drive itself, not the OS?

OK - - well then I don't want to go through all of this if it's not going to work. Any other takers?