External DVD Drive Issues

[IsaacPercival]

Hi all,

I received an external USB 3.0 DVD drive as a gift which states it is compatible with both Windows and OSX but have been having a hard time getting my hack to recognize it. I wish I could give you product specifics, but the box itself is super generic. It's plugged in and appears in my System Information, but any disk I put in it isn't recognized. I've tried audio CDs, DVDs and CR-Rs to no avail. The eject button on the drive illuminates and ejects, so I know it's getting power. Unfortunately I've also tried the drive on a Windows machine and am having similar problems (it's recognized, 'eject' causes the tray to eject, but nothing is read).

I can't seem to find help with this specific problem. Has anyone experienced this? And if so, what did you do to rectify it?
Thanks!

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hi all,

I received an external USB 3.0 DVD drive as a gift which states it is compatible with both Windows and OSX but have been having a hard time getting my hack to recognize it. I wish I could give you product specifics, but the box itself is super generic. It's plugged in and appears in my System Information, but any disk I put in it isn't recognized. I've tried audio CDs, DVDs and CR-Rs to no avail. The eject button on the drive illuminates and ejects, so I know it's getting power. Unfortunately I've also tried the drive on a Windows machine and am having similar problems (it's recognized, 'eject' causes the tray to eject, but nothing is read).

I can't seem to find help with this specific problem. Has anyone experienced this? And if so, what did you do to rectify it?
Thanks!

Hello there.

This could just be a power-supply problem. If your drive only connects to a single USB port there might not be enough. A way round this is to use an adapter cable that features an extra plug to go in a second motherboard USB socket and augment the power being supplied.

Not all drives are equal. Apple's SuperDrive for example is quite happy with a single port supply.

 

[IsaacPercival]

Thank you for your reply!

To end the suspense, shortly after posting my question I was able to contact the company, and they sent me a replacement drive and it seems to work first try. So I guess it was a bum drive after all.