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Lord of the Rings DVD Incompatible With Some PowerBooks


New Line’s new Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring special edition DVD set, will not work with certain PowerBook’s, specifically (but possibly not limited to) G3 PowerBooks with LG Drives (model number DRN-8080B). Turns out it’s a drive firmware issue, with the LG drives being at fault (and, for many of us PowerBook users with LG drives, it’s just yet another problem with drives that seem very temperamental — when they work). Many PowerBook G3 FireWire laptops use the LG DRN-8080B drive as described in the article below, meaning that none of them can mount or use the Lord of the Rings discs as they will simply eject before mounting.

Here’s an article from The One Ring about the issue, featuring comments from an InterActual support tech. InterActual participated in the creation of the DVD.

”We apologize for the problems you are experiencing with the Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition DVD. We have had reports of customers experiencing problems with these discs with several specific DVD ROM drive models. If your computer has one of the following drive models installed, then it is likely that the drive will not recognize any of the discs in this DVD set.

”This is not due to a problem in the way that the discs were created, since they are all fully compliant with the DVD Specification and will play on the majority of DVD equipment. The problem is apparently due to a limitation in the programming of the internal firmware of the drive models in question, and replacing the disc will not resolve the issue.

”We have informed New Line Home Video about these problems, and they are contacting the makers of these drives to ensure that a firmware upgrade is made available to customers which correct this problem.

”The drives that have had problems reported are:

* Samsung SD-616, commonly sold in Dell and HP desktop PC’s * LG DRD8160B, commonly sold in Sony, Dell, or Compaq desktop PC’s * LG DRN8080B, commonly sold in Compaq and HP laptop PC’s

”There are currently no fixes available for the problem at this time. When the problem has been resolved and a firmware upgrade has been released, the manufacturer of your computer system should be able to provide the update to you, and assist if needed with applying the fix to your system.

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/2/1037293699

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.