NEC 3520 Mac Not Working Right???

[urbanlife]

I bought a new NEC 3520 external firewire burner to replace my old 2500. I just plugged it up and started up Toast. I saw the drive mounted and burned a copy of a video-ts folder I had ready. Everything worked out fine. Toast asked me if I wanted to mount the dvd and I clicked ok, the disc ejected out the drive and I ejected it back in and started up apple dvd player. Before it played the movie it asked to set the region for the drive cause it was the first time the drive was being used. I set it to region 1 and played the movie okay. Now I restart my computer the next morning to burn another copy and the drive doesn't show up in Toast. I put in a movie to see if apple dvd player would play a movie from the new drive and nothing happenes. Can someone tell me what I have to do to get the drive to show up in Toast again. I don't think it's a hardware problem so I think it has to do with the fact that apple dvd player asked me to set the region, that was the place action I took before it stop working.

[terryj]

At this point trash the following:

toast.plist
apple.com.DVDPlayer.plist

also since it is FW, zap your Pram to reset your FW ports.
I assume your on a laptop, that's why you
just didn't install the drive internally?

After doing all this, Launch Toast first, and make sure it sees the drive.

[urbanlife]

I'm on a iMac and didn't have to install the driver because I didn't need to. All I did was plug up the firewire cable and when I launched toast it worked. Like I said before, everything worked the first time I used it. I even bured a dvd to see if it would work and it did and when I went to mount the dvd disc to the desktop to use apple dvd player to test the dvd it asked me to set a region on the new drive beacuse it was the first time it was begin used. That said, I tried doing what you said and still nothing happenes. The burned doesn't show up in toast.

[dcsos]

HE said DRIVE, not DRIVER

there is no driver outside of the MAC OS
and TOAST's ability to recognize many IDE ATA & SCSI burner models

The reason he asked is MACs always play nicer with internally installed superdrives (EXTERNAL DRIVES are ONLY RECENTLY SUPPORTED for DVD Video burns (iDVD)
Of Course you can't put the NEC inside the iMAC, so same as LAPTOP....)

Please look in the Apple System Profiler accesible from the button on the 'ABOUT THIS MAC' screen on the blue APPLE MENU.
Is the NEC properly recogcnized by the system?..
If not maybe a firmware tweak by NEC is in order

[urbanlife]

What I don't understand is how would the drive work fine the first time and after a restart it's not working at all. I check the apple system profiler to see if the NEC drive shows up but it still doesn't however if I install my old 2500 NEC drive it works fine. How would I go about tweaking the firmware to see if I can get this drive working again. I know it can't be a hardware problem, well I'm wishing it isn't so I hope there is a easy way to fix it.

[terryj]

well if it worked before, and now does not,
and it is connected via FW, then it is a
HARDWARE issue, either one of the following:

NEC Drive
ATA Cable on FW case
FW port on Case
FW on Mac

Mac has to "poll" the FW port to see what is there
at the end of the chain to the FW bus.
If it can't make
a "poll", then it just reports "FW/400".
So, start with the following:

Disconnect the power cable from the mac, let it sit
for 24 hours with no power.
This will drain the battery, and reset the logic board.
Plug it up, power it on, and boot.
Check the System Profiler.
If it works, then you know it was the mac's FW port, if not
then try replacing the FW case.

[urbanlife]

Thanks again for your reply, but I don't think it has anything to do with my Mac at all. I plugged up my old burner a NEC 2500 and it work like before. It might just be something with the hardware on the new burner.

[terryj]

Hence why I said:

It is a Hardware problem with one of the following:

NEC Burner