How to Determine a CD or DVD Drive‘s Mechanism and Firmware Version

This document explains how to determine which mechanism is used in an external USB or FireWire CD or DVD drive, and what version of firmware that mechanism uses. This information can be useful in determining if the drive is compatible with iTunes.

Follow these steps to determine a CD or DVD drive's mechanism and firmware version:

  1. Connect the external CD or DVD drive to the computer.
  2. Start up the computer.
  3. Choose Apple System Profiler from the Apple menu (Mac OS 9), or open it from the Utilities folder (Applications/Utilities) in Mac OS X.
  4. Click the Devices and Volumes tab.
  5. Locate the listing for the optical drive in the USB or FireWire device tree.
  6. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the device listing to get more information about it.


Below is a screenshot of the information listed in Apple System Profiler for a FireWire optical drive.




Apple System Profiler information about an optical drive

  1. Mechanism model
  2. Firmware version
  3. Mechanism vendor


Tip: In Mac OS 9, Apple System Profiler 2.5.8 or later is required. It is included in the Authoring Support Update 1.1. In Mac OS X, Apple System Profiler 2.7 or later is required.

Use the Software Update control panel to download and install the Authoring Support Update version 1.1. You can also download Authoring Support Update version 1.1 from Apple Downloads.

For the latest information about compatible CD-RW drives, visit the iTunes website.

Published Date: Oct 7, 2016