#External optical drive for mac mini mac os#
#External optical drive for mac mini portable#
#External optical drive for mac mini pro#
#External optical drive for mac mini software#
#External optical drive for mac mini Bluetooth#

And donвЂ™t forget they offered a large point of ingress for dust and liquids in an era when all the ports on laptops are slowly being sealed up (no interchangeable battery flap, few peripheral connectionsвЂ“in favor of Bluetooth and Wi-FiвЂ“and even a magnetic power connector thatвЂ™s вЂњsealedвЂќ). They take up space inside the slender frame of a laptop thatвЂ™s probably better served with more disk space, or a bigger battery. DVD drives are bulky, eat up power when running, and generate heat.

#External optical drive for mac mini portable#

It all makes sense, from a portable computing point of view.

#External optical drive for mac mini pro#

Only the bigger iMac all-in-one, the MacBook Pro range and the Mac Pro desktop workhorse still support internal optical disk drives. The hot-selling MacBook Air, which has no disc drive, is now a consumer-level flagship machine.

#External optical drive for mac mini software#

Apple has stopped selling boxed copies of several software titles including iLife вЂ™11, it was reported today, and is re-routing buyers to the Mac App Store instead. The slot for a DVD, CD, playing-and-burning Superdrive is gone, and the Minis sport boosted internal hard drives instead. The latest Mac Mini is as smooth and shiny as can be, with an almost uninterrupted surface. Other computer and content companies are burying the format too. When the computer maker refreshed its computer offerings this morning it hammered another solid nail into the DVDвЂ™s coffin. Apparently most drive issues are caused when the disk is removed without ejecting it properly.AppleвЂs killing the optical disk format, bit by bitвЂ“just as we suspected. To unmount your drive you can right-click (control-click) on the icon on the Desktop or in the Finder and choose Eject. Make sure that your external drive doesnвЂ™t become damaged in the future by always unmounting the disk properly after using it.

We have final suggestion to make that is more of a guard against this error happening again. Our recommendations include EaseUS Data Recovery for Mac, ВЈ95.99/$89.95 atД®aseus, Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, ВЈ43.99/$59.99 at If you have been unable to access the data on the drive then you might want to try one of the options included in our round up of the Click on Erase and wait for your Mac to erase and then reformat the drive.

#External optical drive for mac mini mac os#

Choose your format, probably exFAT if you want to make sure itвЂ™s compatible with PC and Mac, otherwise, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is probably the best option. You can change this if you click on the Formatting options.

Before Disk Utility starts to erase the disk it will pick a format for you.

If you donвЂ™t require the data on the hard drive, select the disk and click Erase.

Open Disk Utility (as per the steps above).

If your Mac is unable to repair the disk if is likely that the drive is either formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read, or it is well and truly broken вЂ“ if itвЂ™s the latter we suggest you follow this tutorial about

If after running First Aid the Mac finds errors you could fix you may see the option to Repair Disk.

Click the First Aid tab and select Run.

If you need the data on the drive do not choose Erase or Restore!) Erase deletes all the data stored on the drive. (Restore allows you to erase the contents of the drive and replace that with data from somewhere else. First Aid will check the disk for errors and then repair the disk if necessary and this is the option to choose.

Your options are First Aid, Erase and Restore.

(If there is no volume listed your Mac is not able to access the drive. If your Mac has already mounted the drive the option Unmount will be displayed instead.

If it is there click on it and select Mount.

If you can see the hard drive in Disk Utility check underneath it for a volume.

Look in the column on the left to see if the hard drive appears there.

Find Disk Utility by opening Spotlight (cmd+Space-bar) and start typing Disk Utility, press enter to open the program.

If the various checks above suggest that the disk is faulty then you can use AppleвЂ™sДisk Utility program to access the disk and potentially fix whatever is causing the issue. If the drive mounts on the PC itвЂ™s likely that you have discovered what the problem is: the drive is formatted for PCs and canвЂ™t be read by your Mac. The next step is to try plugging the drive into a PC. If it also fails to mount there you will know that there is a problem with the drive while if it does mount then the problem is with your Mac. The next step is to try plugging the drive into another Mac.