This is my first mac and i have searched the forums and apple website but haven't found any concrete evidence of whether or not the optical drive is region free or not, or if there's any way of getting around it?
View 1 RepliesHow to make my iMac DVD drive region/zone free?
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Late 2006 iMac
I have alum macbook trying to play family guy DVD and get this message.
the disc region does not match the drive region.
the drive region must be changed to play this disc.
I am considering ordering a Mac Mini from Apple's Hong Kong store which I presume will have DVD region flags set for 3 and 6 which will cover me in China where I am living now. When I moved here, I reflashed the firmware on my Dell business notebooks with a region free firmware. I am wondering if I will be able to make the mini DVD drive region free so I can play my HK and China DVD's as well as my US DVD's?
Also, I will be purchasing a new 15" MBP also from HK and will want to mod that DVD drive as well so hopefully I can get both answers here.
I am trying to back up my DVDs but have only one more region transition left
View 24 Replies View RelatedI just inserted a DVD into my mac mini for the very first time. It says I get to change the region five times (or ten, I dont remember), but my question is if it is possible to make the mac mini permanently region free, so it can read any DVD at any given time
View 6 Replies View RelatedThe notorious Matsushita UJ-857(D) firmware has at last been cracked, thanks to ben11 from rpc1.org. He has released region-free updates for the HAEA, HBEA, KBVB, and KCVB revisions.
Before I provide the download links, here's the obligatory disclaimer:
WARNING: DO NOT DOWNLOAD IF YOU ARE UNCONFIDENT ABOUT THE FLASHING PROCESS. IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG YOU ARE LIABLE FOR DRIVE REPAIR. THE FOLLOWING IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND IS NOT WARRANTED. FLASHING YOUR DRIVE IS IN VIOLATION OF APPLECARE TERMS
Now, take these steps before you do anything:
1. Check that you have a UJ-857 or UJ-857D drive with revisions HAEA, HBEA, KBVB, or KCVB. This can be done by going to the Apple Menu>About This Mac>More Info. This will open up System Profiler. Click on ATA and the Model number and Revision number will be listed. If it looks OK proceed to step 3.
2. If you have a UJ-857(D) drive but the revision number is NOT one of the four listed (HAEA, HBEA, KBVB, or KCVB), then you have not applied the Superdrive Update 2.1 which Apple released in June. You will need to apply this update BEFORE PROCEEDING. This update is no longer available from Apple so you can download it here. Once you have done so, proceed to step 3.
3. Download DVDInfoX to check whether you have a region set. YOU MUST HAVE PLAYED A DVD IN THIS DRIVE AND SET A REGION IN ORDER TO PROCEED. A correctly set drive will produce something along the lines of this using DVDInfoX:
Quote:
Vendor: MATSHITA
Model: DVD-R UJ-857D
Firmware: KBVB
RPC-2 (region locked)
State is SET
4 vendor resets left
3 region changes left
Region 2
If "State" is "SET", you are ready to flash your drive.
4. Download the correct RPC-1 (Region-Free) update.
UJ-857 Revision HAEA
UJ-857 Revision HBEA
UJ-857D Revision KBVB
UJ-857D Revision KCVB.
5. Read the included README and then proceed to opening the "Update to region free" application. The process will start immediately. DO NOT INTERRUPT THE FLASHING IN ANY WAY - it will result in a broken drive. Also, there are only a certain number of times the drive can be flashed so be very very careful. I suggest you restart the computer and shut down any other application that is running before you run the update - just to be safe.
One note: the flashing will probably hang at 60%, and then again at 90%. This is normal. Just be patient and let it finish. Do not panic and do anything stupid.
6. If everything goes well, the flashing will finish and it will ask you to restart. Once you have done that, you can open DVDInfoX and check that the drive has been flashed. A correctly flashed drive will show something along these lines:
Quote:
Vendor: MATSHITA
Model: DVD-R UJ-857
Firmware: HBEA
RPC-1 (region free)
7. That's it. Make sure to download Region X to change the region of the drive before you play DVDs. The drive is region-free, but you must still change the region manually to play DVDs from different regions.
how can i play all regions.I have mac 10.5.5
HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS21N:
Firmware Revision:SA15
Interconnect:ATAPI
Burn Support:Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache:2048 KB
Reads DVD:Yes
CD-Write:-R, -RW
DVD-Write:-R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies:CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media:Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds
I was wondering if anyone had successfully installed and 2nd hard drive in their iMac?I have a 2 year old 2.8 24'' iMac and the performance just isn't cutting the mustard, it's all hard drive related and I already have a decent 1TB drive in there.I was thinking of perhaps swapping the optical drive with a second hard drive for RAID0, but not too sure if there will be space and was wondering if the optical drive is a standard SATA connector, or if there is some way I could run a SATA+power cables externally?
View 7 Replies View RelatedI did a search but couldn't find any specific info as related to the 20" (late 2006) iMac. Basically, I do a lot of audio work with Logic and DP and I'm interested in replacing my 20" iMac's optical drive with a second internal hard drive. If anyone has any experience or insight regarding this, I would greatly appreciate your input. About 6 months ago, I did a DIY replacement of my iMac's internal hard drive (upgrade to 1 tb), so I'm pretty sure I'd like to DIY an optical drive / hard drive swap - that is, if it's 1) Proven to work stably (thermally and otherwise) 2) Not going to require the iMac's fan to be running faster/louder than normal Looking at my iMac's system profiler, the DVD drive is on an ATA bus (which, as I remember it, is slower than S-ATA). What kind of transfer rates do you think one could realistically expect with a hard drive on this ATA bus? Also, would I have to be careful about new hard drive compatibility, or are S-ATA and S-ATA II backwards compatible with ATA?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have been reading and reading but I can't seem to find the answer. Im trying to figure out if the optical drive for the iMac has a slimline sata connector or a standart sata connector. Reason is I'd like to install an SSD and use an optibay adaptor.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI'm using a 20" white intel iMac and cannot manage to remove a linux boot disc from the optical drive.At first, the only way that i managed to boot to the linux disc in the first place was from the Startup Disk menu in OSX. I could not even get to the Startup Manager ('opt' at boot) or boot straight to the disc ('C').Now i'm in a position where no matter what i do, the system boots to the linux disc. I cannot even force the startup into OSX to try to eject the disc from there. I've tried holding all of these keys/combinations at startup
View 3 Replies View RelatedIs it possible to disconnect the optical superdrive from my iBook G4 (which is dead but the superdrive still works) and install it in my iMac G5? (Superdrive here is dead)
View 3 Replies View RelatedWhat is the size of the drive is it 9.5mm or 12.7mm?
And will this work?
[URL]
I know it doesn't say it is compatible but it is a slot loading drive compatible with osx.
I have the first gen aluminum iMac and I think my optical drive is pretty much dead. It makes this horrible scratching noise whenever I put a disc in and it'll try to read for half a minute before spitting it back out. Sometimes it even freezes the computer. Anyway, I'm just planning on getting an external USB DVD burner. Does anyone know if I can boot off the USB DVD drive?
View 1 Replies View RelatedWe have a imac 20" bought 9 months ago, Im in school and bought adobe suite and a printer, installed the printer with the internal optical drive, I go to install the adobe suite and the optic drive accepts the dvd and then just kicks it out! so it is toast, the apple guys gave me a repair depot to take the Imac to.
View 2 Replies View RelatedMy little brother bought an old iMac G4 off eBay about six months ago, against the recommendations of my parents and I who told him he should save until he could afford a slightly better machine. He's been improving it here and there when his savings from lawn mowing and birthday has allowed and his latest investment was the 10.5 operating system. When we went to install on the G4, my brother was shattered to find that the machine wouldn't support it. I investigated and found the problem was due to the G4's 800mHz processor. Not a component he could easily switch out. So after a quick flick around, I found another G4 that I considered could actually be a legitimate investment, given the parts we had. The seller claimed that it was perfectly fine, only lacking a working optical drive and hence, also an operating system. Both of which we had.
The second G4 arrived last week and I successfully switched the working optical drive from the old G4 with the "broken" one. Just to make sure I wouldn't lose the screws holding it all together, I installed the "broken" optical drive into the old G4 as well. Then I went to install Leopard. The new G4 has a 1GHz processor and it recognised the Leopard install DVD at boot. It presented the loading screen with the Apple sign and the rotating loading wheel, but wouldn't progress past this. Every time we tried to boot from the install DVD, it would present this screen for around a minute and then the Apple sign would be replaced by a prohibited sign. The booting process never got any further than this. I talked to a few people and ended up installing Leopard via target mode, assuming there was something a little sus with the harddrive which would be resolved once the OS was in place. But wherever the problem lies, it still remains. The G4 now boots successfully from the harddrive and operates fine, but refuses to recognise the optical drive. Here is my chain of reasoning:
- The optical drive in the G4 is not at fault. We know this because it operated fine in my brother's first machine.
- The hard drive is not at fault. We know this because the OS installed and now boots and operates without problem.
- The OS is not at fault. We know this because I performed an almost identical installation (minus target mode) using the same install DVD only days before on a G5.
- My installation work is not at fault. We know this because I performed an identical installation of the "broken" optical drive in the old G4. An interesting side note: the "broken" drive is working fine in the old machine. It is not as broken as the eBay seller thought.
I don't know a whole lot about computers. Most of what I learn is from trial and error problem solving like this. My question is: where does the problem lie?
Info:
iMac
I have a 20" G5 iSight iMac running OS X 10.4.11. The optical drive will not recognise any discs other than original audio CDs - it takes a long time to do this, and is very noisy whilst spinning. Any other DVDs or CDs (including ones burnt on the same machine) are just ejected after about 30 seconds of whirring and do not appear to be recognised anywhere by the computer.
Info:
iMac G5
I think it started from when i updated from 10.5.8 to 10.9. I had been having trouble reading any disks at all and sat down to try and fix it, when I looked more into it i noticed a few errors that kept popping up. When I insert any disk it reads for a bit and then just ejects. When i try and look for the disk utility there is no optical drive there.
When i open CDs and DVDs "You can’t open the “CDs & DVDs” preferences pane because it is not available to you at this time. To see this preferences pane, you may need to connect a device to your computer." In system information - disk burning it says "No disc burning device was found. If the device is external, make sure it’s connected and turned on." When inserting a movie DVD and opening DVD player "A valid DVD drive could not be found [-70012]
After inserting a DVD it didn't come out. so there is a dvd stuck in there now ... got iMac 27" early 2009 with 2.66ghz 8gb ram and 10.9.4osx
I bought one of the new-gen iMacs last month--my first Mac! My computer will often start making a low-droning noise, and it sounds like a fan. I have iStat, and usually during this time it will say that my Optical Drive and CPU Fan are both running at around 4000rpm. This happens when there is very little CPU usage too. It's happening right now, and I only have firefox running.
View 11 Replies View RelatedI have a 3 year old 24" iMac (see sig). I recently discovered the optical drive is not working any more. It won't accept any discs and just spits them out. Two questions:
-I assume the drive can be replaced somewhere like the Apple Store. Does anyone know about how much that would cost?
-Are there any alternatives to replacing the internal drive, like buying an external desktop optical drive? If so, what's a good one to get?
I've researched and googled and finally downloaded VLC. I can't get it to work. It will paly the title screen of the movie and then shuts down.
I read another thread here from a person who said they newer macbooks won't let VLC run. I bought mine last SEptember.
Updated my late 2007 iMac to 10.6.2 and after that every time I pop in a DVD or CD into the optical drive it spins up and then I get a dialog box that tells me that I have put in an empty disc and the question what I want to do. Can't read them in itunes or DVD player (or any other program). Is it just coincidence that this happened just when I updated. The drive is an OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5630A
View 1 Replies View RelatedI need to reformat my iMac G5, but my optical drive doesn't work. How can I restore my iMac to factory settings and then reinstall from the purchased discs, Aperature, Final Draft and Final Cut Studio 7? Can I use my Ibook unibody's drive to somehow do this?Desperate to edit footage from my trip to South Sudan for CNN and NBC, and my macbook's screen has a 3 inch black line down the middle (that's another matter entirely!)... hence using the iMac. (Which by the way, has 2GB RAM.)Also, while I'm here, is it easy the replace the optical drive myself?I've successfully done it with my MacBook, but the imac looks like not possible.
Info:
iMac
I was in the middle of ripping a series of CDs in iTunes when the drive suddenly stopped reading the CDs' contents - I have tried several CDs, including re-trying ones I had already ripped. It does not get beyond track list. Do I need a new drive or can I solve it? I have also tried using a CD cleaning disc. 3 years old iMac with Mavericks installed, no previous problems. It still reads disc title and content list and loads / ejects correctly.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7)
I'm looking for a DVD software player that plays DVD's from any region on my iMac, which is running Leopard OSX. From everything I've read, the VLC software should enable me to do this - but I've downloaded it and it doesn't! I've disabled the DVD Player that comes with the iMac and changed the settings so that the VLC software is what launches when a DVD loaded and although it'll see and run Region 1 DVD's fine, it won't pick up on, say, a Region 2 DVD. Does anyone know why this is? Or what I'm missing? I'm from England. now living in the States, so have a lot of R2 DVD's that I really need to be able to play on my iMac.
View 9 Replies View RelatedThe new macbook's have the following:MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-868: Firmware Revision:KA13....Is there any chance this is going to be cracked? If so, where should I be looking. I find it ridiculous that a laptop isn't region free!
View 14 Replies View RelatedSo for the last couple years I have been addicted to Amazon.com. Living in Australia, I cannot get many of the DVDs I want (especially TV Shows). So 2 years, and thousands of dollars later, I have a stack of Region 2 DVDs (as well as many Region 4 from when I buy local).
I think you see where I'm going
Is there working, *safe* Region-free software available for OS X? I've had a look around the place, such as [EDIT: Links removed], but have found their solutions are either for OS9, or seem to be a little risky.
I'm looking for a software-based Region hack that works the same/similar way as DVD Region Free on the PC (that is, you just have to have the software running in the background when you play a DVD and it makes it region-free, so no risky firmware hacks).
I wish VLC supported menu systems better than they do or I'd just use that, but at the moment it is simply too much of a headache to use for DVDs.
I did change 5 times the drive code region It that a way that could read again the DVD here ?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
My friend is looking into buying the new 27" iMac Core i7 to replace his PC desktop. The only thing holding him back is that he has an analog surround sound system he uses for his speakers. I am having a hard time myself finding a converter that can make his speakers work in the iMac's optical digital output port. Any products out there that will do that?
View 12 Replies View Related