How to supersize your Mac Pro's SuperDrive

Oh, those tricky engineers over at Apple; how they love to slip little treats inside their boxes. Recently we found out that Cupertino had surreptitiously included 802.11n chips from Broadcom into its latest lineup of all-in-one iMacs, and now we've learned that many of the SuperDrives in the Mac Pro are even more super than their spec sheets or current functionality would have led us to believe. The good folks over at HardMac decided to find out the real deal behind Sony's DW-D150A DVD burner that ships with most Mac Pros (the others sport a Pioneer DVR-111D), and after disassembling the drive and doing a little research, discovered that this previously-unknown model is actually just a rebadged NEC ND-4570A. Normally such a revelation wouldn't be very interesting, except for the fact that NEC's version of the burner touts superior performance and more features than Apple endowed the Sony with, and a fairly simple firmware tweak is all it takes to make your SuperDrive even more powerful. We won't go into the specifics of the hack here, but after you've successfully followed the instructions laid out in the Read link, your drive will suddenly be able to burn DVD-RAMs and dual layer DVD-Rs, write CD-R discs at 48x (as is, these SuperDrives max out at 32x), and perhaps best of all, read DVDs from around the world (i.e. the new firmware is region-free). Next up for Team HardMac? Getting ahold of some LabelFlash-compatible discs and attempting a firmware update to the ND-4571 -- soon, your Mac Pro may be able to get its label on as well.

[Via TUAW]

[Eric @ Oct 9th 2006 4:37PM]

uuuuh.... I am assuming you meant "the GOOD folks over at Hard Mac..."

[Zeek @ Oct 9th 2006 4:37PM]

"The gook folks over at HardMac"

You should probably keep your asian slurs off such public places.

[Thanatos @ Oct 9th 2006 4:37PM]

Um ... spelling error could make some people angry ...

[Zeek @ Oct 9th 2006 4:38PM]

Jinx. But me a iMac.

[desertedmedia @ Oct 9th 2006 4:38PM]

"The gook folks over at HardMac..."
Wow, you do realize that "gook" is a racist term, don't you?

Perhaps you meant "geeks," or just really, really don't like the Vietnamese...

[Zeek @ Oct 9th 2006 4:38PM]

uh, buy.

[sean @ Oct 9th 2006 4:39PM]

The gook folks at HardMac? Really?

[Terrell Daffron @ Oct 9th 2006 4:43PM]

the word "gook" does not refer to Vietnamese...it refers to Koreans. I being a gook myself.

[zolon @ Oct 9th 2006 4:45PM]

Maybe he ment the original definition, in which case he was saying "country folk". "Gook" is actually Korean for "country."

Oh, and for those who decide to complain and say to use spell check, it passes spell check in most apps.

As far as the article meaning and content, this rocks.

[Nate @ Oct 9th 2006 4:49PM]

@Terrell

My mistake. Next time I'll do a little more research about offensive names before I go out and start using them. Sheesh, I'd be liable to go out and offend someone that I didn't mean to...and that'd be downright offensive!

@ zolon
Maybe he used the David Duke version of Microsoft Office. I bet there's all sorts of fun words in that version's spell checker.

[Matt Errend @ Oct 9th 2006 5:05PM]

That typo is awsome!

Gook folks! :D

[Scott @ Oct 9th 2006 5:14PM]

I wish I had some Gook Folks that I could get working on hacking my hardware for me.


You know they work around the clock on that kind of stuff.

[jared @ Oct 9th 2006 5:54PM]

I'd just like to say this (apparently) worked without a hitch on my MP.

Oh and dude, 'gook' is not the preferred nomenclature. "Vietnamese american," please.

[VQH @ Oct 9th 2006 6:13PM]

Freudian slip?

I don't see how it could be a mistype since the k and d are on opposite sides of the keyboard.

[HughJass @ Oct 9th 2006 6:15PM]

"...NEC's version of the burner touts superior performance and more features than Apple endowed the Sony with..."

Apple didn't endow the Sony drive with features. Sony endowed the Sony drive with features.

[jnasato @ Oct 9th 2006 6:15PM]

"gook"->"good"... The "D" and "K" key are both typed with the middle finger, so the error is understandable.

As for the firmware upgrade/hack..... NICE! Not that I can afford a Mac Pro now...

[hoyce @ Oct 9th 2006 6:19PM]

macaca

[fubar @ Oct 9th 2006 6:23PM]

The reason spell-checkers don't catch things like this is because "gook" is a scientific term used frequently by neuroscientists; it refers to the stuff inside the skull.

[Rick @ Oct 9th 2006 6:50PM]

now I feel like some good take-out...

[Brian Paul Ehni @ Oct 9th 2006 6:58PM]

Just tried this on my quad 3GHz Mac Pro; no dice! 8^(

[Jacob @ Oct 9th 2006 7:35PM]

typical apple!

[AnnDee @ Oct 9th 2006 8:31PM]

You didn't read it


typical Sony

[HughJass @ Oct 9th 2006 9:17PM]

Haha, you and I seem to be the only ones who realized this has nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with Sony.

[Andy @ Oct 9th 2006 9:58PM]

Just dropping in to say that this worked for my default setup Mac Pro (2.66).

[Ryan Gardner @ Oct 9th 2006 11:49PM]

This is hardly news. The boys over at rpc1.org have been flashing firmwares for longer than you have been blogging. Crossflashing to enable new features is also an established practice...

Cross flashing your drive to enable labelflash is illegal (although nobody will ever bust you for it). The drive had labelflash disabled because they didn't pay to license it.

Now that you've advertised this ability to any idiot who signs on to AOL, the feature geeks love to abuse will soon be under tighter scrutiny and perhaps in the future features like LabelFlash will not be possible to simply do a firmware change to enable...

/rant

[Derrick @ Oct 10th 2006 9:05AM]

Ya know, I'm thinking the geeks don't seem to care all that much about LabelFlash due to the expensive nature of its media.

[HughJass @ Oct 10th 2006 10:00AM]

You really need to simmer down there, buddy. Lighten up. Chill out. Have a beer. Relax. Take a vacation.

[Erik @ Oct 10th 2006 1:25AM]

I don't see why it was nessicary for like 10 responses hilighting that he had made a spelling error....

[Gaz @ Oct 10th 2006 8:08AM]

Ha HA Gook not Good!!