Hi all,

I've got an odd question...

An Aunt of mine needed a CD Burner for her old eMac, so I got her the LG GE20LU11 for Christmas.

She tells me that her eMac doesn't meet the minimum requirements...

My question is this... do the minimum requirements refer to the software that is included? Or to the drive itself? The drive is just a USB drive, so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

She HAS used a USB CD Burner before, but it died. It was a LaCie.

I did confirm that the LG drive does work with a Mac.

Anybody know?

-Mike

Don't know.

The drive say USB 2.0. Is the eMac USB 1.0? Maybe that's the problem.

If it requires a minimum version of OSX then that would be a software problem.

So, my guess is either hardware (not having USB 2.0) or not having the minimum version of OS X. I thought I saw the minimum requirements were 10.4.10 but I could be wrong.

Well, the LG US site (http://www.lge.com/us/computer-products/optical-media/LG-external-dvd-burner-GE20LU11.jsp) lists this drive, but doesn't give much in the way of specs for it. According to the specs listed on Shopper.com (http://shopper.cnet.com/dvd-drives/lg-ge20lu11-super-multi/4014-3212_9-33832472.html#info-5), it is a Windows only drive.

On LG Canada's site (http://www.lge.com/ca_en/computer-products/optical-storage/LG-external-dvd-burner-GE20LU10.jsp), a current and similar model number GE20LU10 also lists only support for Windows. Where did you see or hear that it was Mac compatible?

Perhaps another LaCie drive (http://www.lacie.com/ca/products/range.htm?id=10014) would be a better choice. The second one shown is both firewire and USB 2. Using firewire should give better performance in this case, since it will be connected to an older USB 1 machine. Btw, the only external optical drive that Apple has available now is meant only for the MacBook Air, so don't bother with that one.

Was the internal drive on her eMac not a CDRW? Some only had CD-ROM, but it's worth confirming, if CD writing is all she is after.

There are many drives from various companies, hard drives included, that specify Windows ony. From my experience it simply means for CD/DVD drives that it only includes Windows software, and you can use it on Mac by using your favourite burning app such as Toast. For hard drives, they simply need reformatting.

You haven't given us enough information about the eMac to be able to help you.

According to this wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMac) the eMac was introduced in 2002 and discontinued in 2006 and there where 4 generations of the eMac all of which included USB 2 which seems to be the only requirement for that particular CD burner. As far as I can tell it should be plug'n play.

eMacs built before 2004 were USB 1.1 only

eMac (2003)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP98

eMac (2002)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP74

eMacs built before 2004 were USB 1.1 only

eMac (2003)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP98

eMac (2002)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP74
Look like you're correct. The earlier models were USB 1.1. so that would pose a problem.

Here's a link (http://support.apple.com/specs/#emac) to Apple's tech specs for all four generations of eMac. The first two generation were in fact USB 1.1 while the last two generations were USB 2.