[UnaClocker]

Originally Posted by philipdistefano

I have never heard a DVD drive not being OS X compatible. o_O

I bought a slimline Samsung DVD burner from NewEgg for $50 and it works great. I think they've marked up the price since then, though.

-Philip

Check the old threads.. VERY common. Seems to have been narrowed down to, if the drive has an external power supply, it usually works. If it gets power straight from the USB port, it usually doesn't work.

[philipdistefano]

Originally Posted by UnaClocker

Check the old threads.. VERY common. Seems to have been narrowed down to, if the drive has an external power supply, it usually works. If it gets power straight from the USB port, it usually doesn't work.

Mine does. I checked the price, it's still $49.99 but NewEgg is out of stock for now. It draws power via USB (it doesn't even have a way to get external power) via one or two ports (it seems to work fine using just one port). I installed Office 2008 from it last night. :? Guess I got lucky with my choice of external drive!

-Philip

[UnaClocker]

I'm sure it works fine for installing programs, but does it boot off the Type11 CD and then transition to the Leopard DVD properly?

[philipdistefano]

Originally Posted by UnaClocker

I'm sure it works fine for installing programs, but does it boot off the Type11 CD and then transition to the Leopard DVD properly?

Ah well, that I don't know. :P I used iDeneb so I skipped all of that.

...I still recommend this drive though!

-Philip

[HMiller]

I did not try a USB powered drive, but instead just used an old PC DVD drive I had lying around and it worked perfectly. My reason for the post is to suggest that you may want to consider a USB to IDE/SATA adapter. Mine cost about $25, and I can hook a SATA or PATA Hard Disk or DVD Drive to a USB Port on either my mini9 or my desktop Hack, or one of my Windows PCs. Mine came with the power adapter for PATA or SATA format. I too have never heard of a drive that would not work with OSX (and yes I have used sata bridges to make them work but why not spend $30 for the DVD writer and $25 for a kit that allows you to hook up almost any drive to anything. The one I have even does 2.5" laptop drives on the other side of the adapter. No MicroPCI-e drives sadly, lol.

[jeffburg]

i decided to get it running from 2 usb thumb drives. a tiny 1gb or 2gb one for the boot132 and an 8gb one for leopard. that way they are actually useful to me in the future... and they install a lot faster :-)
On the other hand you need a Mac to copy your retail leopard dvd to the thumb drive... and then you need windows to make the boot132 bootable from a usb thumb drive.

[userx]

Originally Posted by philipdistefano

Ah well, that I don't know. :P I used iDeneb so I skipped all of that.

...I still recommend this drive though!

-Philip

I bought this same Samsung drive, I would like to know if it can boot off Type 11, my drive has not come in yet, I am crossing my fingers that it will work.

[bigdaddyp]

I bought the same one (liteon) from wallyworld and works like a champ. As an added bonus its about twice the size of the dell mini9.