Bill D., the reader that originally sent the article and photos here on the Matshita UJDA710 drive commented on how to set it as a Master, vs. Slave.

" Chuck, Mike: After sleeping on this, I'm sure that pin 47 (CSEL) can be safely tied directly to ground (no "pull-down") resistor. Therefore, an equivalent, and slightly simpler means of pulling pin 47 low would be to build a solder bridge between pin 47 and the adjacent pin 45 (ground) on the interface board.
Bill D."

Chuck later replied to this mail:

" Bill, you're a freakin' genius. I decided not to wait till school started up again next week and took the adapter down to a computer repair shop and had them solder pins 45 & 47, and it now correctly shows up as "0" (master) instead of "1" (slave), and better yet, it's now BOOTABLE (holding down "C" key)!

One odd thing I noted, though. It takes about a minute for the "Happy Mac" icon to appear and it to start booting off of the CD with the UJDA710 drive. I had begun to wonder if it was frozen or wasn't going to work."

The previous two articles on this drive (mods and caddy swap info) are linked on the IDE articles page CD/CDRW/DVD section or below in the list of recent site articles and reviews. (The original article has a photo showing the pin numbering that Bill sent.)

Here's a summary of problems reported by some (not all) owners of this drive:

• Inability to play DVD Movies (not recognized by DVD player or DVDs not mounting)
  
  
• One owner reported the drive was set to Region 2 and could not be changed by the DVD player for his region 1 discs. (Others that were able to play DVDs noted they were able to change the region code fine using the DVD player)
  
  
• Waking from Sleep errors (the Mac thinks the expansion bay drive has been removed)
  Tip: From Ed Lai in the forums:
  " If you get the message that the expansion bay was removed when you close the lid to put the computer to sleep, the following work-around has worked for me.
  1. From Finder, goto the Special drop down menu and select sleep.
  2. Then close the lid.
  3. When you open the lid you shouldn't get that error message anymore.
  If I just close the lid without putting it to sleep first, I get the error message. "
• One owner reported inablility to read a burned DVD-R disc.
  
  
• A report the drive was not bootable (try the usual "C" key tip or the option key at boot if that fails)

Note: The UJDA710 drive is set to a slave (ID 1) which is not normal for expansion bay drives (usually ID 0 as is the original expansion bay CD or DVD drives).

Apple TILs on SDAP Extensions: It may not be related, but there were two Apple TILs linked here in Friday's (9/7/2001) "Software Updates, TILs, Other Net News" page at the main site.

• PowerBook (FireWire): Periodic CD/DVD Drive Noise
• PowerBook (FireWire): Audio CD Stops Playing

Both these TILs noted that problems with the PB G3 firewire's original DVD ROM drive may be caused by having the SDAP extension enabled. The TIL says the SDAP extension is only needed for expansion bay CDRW drives according to the articles. I'm not sure it's needed if just using Toast with the drive, but I assume so if using iTunes/Discburner from the comments in the articles. (The first of the articles here on the Matshita Combo drive links to a download of an iTunes modified support file for it.) May not be related to the problems, but just a FYI. (I checked my PB G4, and even after installing the Toast 5.02 update (after having iTunes installed), the SDAP extension was still enabled.)

Got a Tip or Feedback? If any owners of a Matshita UJDA710 have tips or suggestions about any of the above problems, please contact me with details.

" Hi Mike, Adding to the combo DVD-CDRW discussion, I purchased a Matshita UJDA-330 from the same ebay auction source for only $66.00...not bad for a 8x8x24 CDRW drive! I too ran into the problem with trying to adapt a LG faceplate and just filed the original to fit, looks pretty good to me that way. Also, my drive has an activity LED just above the eject paper clip hole, which after drilling a hole through the faceplate to reveal it, allows me to see if the drive is running because it is so quiet, especially with burning CDs.
I really appreciate its solid build compared to the junk LG (my third in five months) which sounded like a unbalanced washing machine trying to come up to speed, if it even ever did.

My Pismo 400 with OS9.0.4 and Toast 4.1.3 instantly recognized the drive and burns at 8X (650MB in 9 minutes) flawlessly, even though Roxio's site reports Toast 5 is needed to function. It also boots CDs using option key start, C key start doesn't work. Also, CDs need to be dragged to trash to eject, menu grays out eject option. System Profiler shows it as ATA 0 ID=1. [slave drive, as is the combo drive. I asked if he had the wake from sleep issue.-Mike] Needless to say I think this was the real sleeper item, especially since I have no use for DVDs, yet.
Bruce "

Lombard PB G3 Owners - Reminder on DVD Player/Decoder: [I posted this note on the previous articles on this combo drive but it may have been missed, so I'll repeat it here.]
Remember if used in a Lombard G3/333 (without the DVD decoder chip), adding a DVD ROM drive will not add DVD player capability. The 1.x DVD player requires a hardware decoder - the 2.x DVD players (software decoders) require a Rage128 or later ATI chip (only on the PB G3 firewire and PB G4 models). VST and Apple in the past sold a PCMCIA decoder card but I don't know of current sources or pricing for them.

Just as a FYI, here's the only totally positive report recently in the database since the previous articles here were posted. (For the most recent comments/problem reports - see below.)

Date Posted: 9/4/2001
Interface: Expansion Bay
(he noted IDE, but since it's used in the expansion bay slot it's best listed there. All expansion bay drives are IDE-Mike)
System: PowerBook G3 2000 running OS 9.2
Driver Used: Toast Reader Extension
Comments:
"No problems with this drive at all. NO problems playing DVD's (watched two movies with it). Running MacOS 9.2.1. Burns great in 9.2.1 with a hacked Apple driver in iTunes & Disc Burner. Burns great in Toast Titanium 5.02 without any modifications. iTunes in MacOS X does _not_ recgonize the drive though to burn with, but will rip with it.
Johnathan Spectre
he later wrote via email

I just wanted to say I have had no problem with my combo drive (purchased from eBay like most everyone else). The only problem (which wasn't really one) that happened was the first time I put a DVD in, the drive was set for Region 2 and asked me if I wanted to change to Region 1. It warned me I had 3 more changes (after this one) and the drive would be locked forever. This is common for DVD drives, though Apple's tend to come from the factory set to Region 1. Since then I've had no problems reading or writing CD's, CDRW's or DVD's. I've burned several CD's, a few CDRW's of MP3 files and watched two movies on it so far. Never a skip, burp or jump. Mainly I use Toast Titanium 5.02 but have tested iTunes and Disc Burner just for kicks. I have also tested it with Discribe 4.5, works fine. The only program I have found it didn't work with was Retrospect 4.3, maybe it will in some future version.

To the person who reported DVD trouble, they might want to check the DVD's region or see if the DVD itself is defective. I've also had trouble using DVD's with CD SpeedTools. In general if I'm going to be watching or using DVD's I make sure I use Apple's drivers, never have a problem with them.

I love my combo drive even though I have a 24x8x40 Firewire CDRW I purchased not too long ago.
Johnathan

Firmware version 1.02 (Apple system profiler reported revision number.)

No problems with this drive at all. NO problems playing DVD's (watched two movies with it). Running MacOS 9.2.1. Burns great in 9.2.1 with a hacked Apple driver in iTunes & Disc Burner. Burns great in Toast Titanium 5.02 without any modifications. iTunes in MacOS X does _not_ recgonize the drive though to burn with, but will rip with it.

[Is the drive bootable?-Mike]

Yes, I can boot MacOS 9.1 and MacOS X from the drive, haven't bothered to test my YDL 2.0 disc, I can if you want, I assume it works.

[If you put the PB to sleep do you get an error when waking from sleep (message about the Exp. bay drive being removed).-Mike]

No.

I have never used other than Apple's drivers for any Powerbook and actually prefer them by far for even desktops. (The only way I'd use another driver is if I had to for support of a drive that Apple's drivers didn't work with.)
I asked Jonathan if the drive was bootable and if he'd seen the wake from sleep issue.

Other Reports from Owners: (most recent additions first)

[9/14/2001 update]
Lombard G3/400 (has DVD chip) owner comments from a drive database report:

" Bought this drive off of ebay like everyone else after reading reports for my 1999 Powerbook G3/400 (Lombard).

I had one CD/DVD module previously go bad so I already had an extra caddy and faceplate. No problems switching out the old drive except as previously noted one of the screw holes for the faceplate doesn't line up. This tab can be glued down with a drop of superglue.

Unlike other Lombard owners who have reported problems playing DVD's, I had no problems using Apple DVD Player 1.3 (my Lombard 400MHz has the builtin hardware DVD decoder). When I first started up Apple DVD Player 1.3 with the new drive in, it informed me the drive was set to Region (4, I think) and the DVD I was trying to watch was Region 1. Changed the Region and everything worked fine. No problems reading data CD's. No problems playing audio CD's. I installed Toast Titanium 5.0 and burnt a data CD-R at 8x with no problems.

The ONLY problem I've run into so far is the inability to boot from the CD drive. Neither holding down "C" or "Option" at bootup works (the again, "Option" at bootup has never done anything on my Lombard). I believe this is due to the drive being set to ID 1, when it should be ID 0. I cracked open the case on the drive to check for a jumper switch somewhere on the board but wasn't able to locate one, and the manufacturers website didn't have schematics that I could find.

I'm wondering if the reason it allows CD booting in the Pismos is because of the Pismo firmware update?

Aside from not being able to boot from it, it seems to work OK. If anyone has any ideas about how to change the ID number, let me know at 'themacgeek@hotmail.com'. "

The drive is set to slave (ID 1) vs Master (ID 0). that might be a factor in the boot issue perhaps. (Can't remember if any Lombard owner noted being able to boot from it.) I think one reader said this may be set via resistors on the drive.

[9/7/2001 update]
The author of the original article here on the drive sent more comments.

" Mike: Following with much interest your latest reports on combo drives in Pismos...since I figure Ed Lai and I started tis particular sequence of events.

Points:

1) You are correct that my UJDA710 shows up as an IDE 1 ("slave") drive in ASP. I did not originally realize that the Pismo had two internal IDE busses. I rechecked both my original "LG" brand DVD drive mechanism AND a old TEAC laptop CD drive I had and BOTH of them show up as IDE 0 ("master") on the Pismo when installed in the same Pismo expansion bay housing.

2) For info, while I agree that there are no "jumpers" on these laptop drives as on desktop drives, there ARE options on the electrical adapter that fits in the expansion bay housing bewteen the miniature ATAPI drive connector (on the Combo or DVD mechanism) and the internal Pismo connector. My adapter shows Apple part no. 820-1030-A, and has 7 sets of solder pads, labeled R1,R2,R3 and C1,C2,C3, and C4. On my adapter, only "R1" is filled, with a 1K surface mount resistor. I am curious if the adapter that came with Matsushita mechanisms is the same...my expectation is that the adapter for Matsushita drives is different (or at least set differently), and that difference is why my UJDA710 drive in an LG expansion bay housing shows up as a slave where a UJDA710 installed in a housing that came with a Matsushita drive would (my guess) show up as a master.

3) I don't have enough info to try changing my adapter, but you may want to ask your readers to feedback the part numbers and setting of their adapters...shouldn't take much feedback to sort this out. In your problem reports on this setup, I think it would be useful to ask readers to be VERY specific as to their original brand of drive and the part number and setttings of their adapter, and how the UJDA710 shows up in ASP. I also suspect that some Pismo owners may have not upgraded their firmware (I have), and that may be another useful piece of info that COULD affect drive behavior (especially booting from the drive).

4) I have not tried a "burnt" DVD in my UJDA710, but am curious about that problem report as well...I'd particularly like to know if that home-made DVD that would not work in a UJDA710 would work in either the MCE or iBook combo drive (Toshiba mechanisms ?).

5) As I think you've concluded, those who started with Matsushita DVD drives (and probably Matsushita CD drives as well) in their Pismos and Lombards can move the drive faceplate to their new UJDA710 with minimal difficulty. The "LG" brand faceplate may LOOK the same from the outside, the mounting to the drive tray is altogether different...it just won't work. [I've added a note on this to the articles-Mike
Thanks again for a great site !
Bill D."

Another Lombard owner problem report:

" Hi, I just wanted to share my experiences with this thing. I just got / installed the unit and I've been having the same problems i've seen reported on your site.

I'm running a lombard, and i can read regular CDs fine, and I even burnt a CD (not CDRW) at 8x apparently fine, but just about every other aspect is bunk. when trying to mount DVDs it seems to spin for a second and then apparently do nothing, after about 45 seconds or so, it will seem like my mac has frozen. after waiting another (approx.) 45 seconds, it'll them give me a pop-up window asking if i want to initialize the disk at either Macintosh 2K or Prodos 2K (or eject).
this happens consistantly.

here's what i've done to troubleshoot:

first, i ran dvdinfo 2.02 and it reports that the drive is an RPC-2 (region locked) and set for region 2 with 4 changes left and 5 vendor resets left. based on this information, i tried to mount a region 2 dvd (which i have) and got the same results.

I've done my tests with the following systems: 9.04 (japanese)
9.1 (japanese)
9.21 (japanese)
9.1 (english)
9.21 (english)

and have tried every version of Apple CD/DVD Driver from 1.2.2 to 1.4.7 and even tried the driver hack found on the resexcellence pages.
[Note - as I mentioned on the past articles for this drive and in FAQ and other notes here in the past, DVD Player versions 1.x require a hardware decoder. A DVD ROM drive alone will not make that player work if you do not have the DVD decoder chip in the lombard or a DVD decoder PCcard.-Mike]

*STILL* no avail. so, then I removed the apple driver and tried the toast 5.01 driver (I don't have the 5.02 updater yet) and still nothing.

under 9.04(j) i was able to burn a CD at 8x (although i haven't fully verified the validity of the burn... it seems a little "iffy" at parts) but under 9.21 toast gave me some SENSE KEY errors when trying to burn at 4x and totally trashed my media.

I've even gone as far as zapping my PRAM.

I have also witnessed ASP changing the information it reports about the drive if I do the following:

reboot
launch ASP -> click on devices
(leaving ASP open)
try to mount a DVD
after about 20 seconds, pushing the eject button on the drive and having it eject the disc. in ASP, rescanning the bus

apparently depending on which driver it's using, it switches from DVD-ROM to CD-ROM.

I also tried this drive in a friend's Pismo with the same results.

at this point, considering all the time and effort put into getting this thing to work, i'm not convinced that it's the "best bang for your buck" solution. after numerous hours of messing with this trying to get it to work, i finally decided that "ok, well, if i can get a caddy for it, it's still a decent deal" ... however, pbparts.com doesn't have caddies.

at this point i'm pretty sure that murphy has just stepped in and is really stressing "you get what you pay for" (and i feel like i just tossed $200)

there was mention from someone that they had similar problems but was able to overcome them with older drivers, yet they didn't mention which older drivers ... if there is some way to have that person clarify i'm sure it would be very helpful to the rest of us that have gone through this torture.
thanks
alan p."

Alan later replied his Lombard is a G3/400 model with the DVD decoder chip.

" Hi Mike-
I received my drive last week from the eBay seller.

Here are a few comments:
- My drive reads certain DVD's. It looks as if it prefers the ones that have a goldish tint (dual layered?). I did get a 'regular' silver DVD to mount...I ejected it and tried to remount the disk with no luck.

- When I first got the drive to mount a DVD, there was a message (from Apple DVD Player?) that the drive was set to Region 2, that the disc I have is Region 1, and I can make up to 4 changes to the region setting before it locks out the ability. [this is normal for the first time a DVD is used with a new drive-Mike]

- CDR burning worked fine with Toast 4.1.2
- Audio CD's works fine.
- Did not try booting, sleeping, nor anything with a CDRW. Don't have iTunes/Disc Burner installed either.
- Running OS9.1
- I emailed the seller...no response.
- For now, I'm back to using the original DVD drive as I currently have a need to use my Book as a DVD player.

Guess these are the breaks one has to deal with when buying through eBay. (second bad experience out of dozens of good ones...)
Denis "

Several owners reported that after waking from sleep there was a dialog box noting that the Expansion Bay drive had been removed (when it hadn't of course).

A reader sent a reminder that the LG DVD ROM drive doesn't have a removable side cover to use with the Combo drive. (I've updated the build guide page to note that.)

" Hi Mike, I have a Pismo and I bought the Matsushita drive and I thought this was one of greatest deals ever to get a combo DVD/CDRW into my Powerbook. I won an eBay auction and I received the drive. I was able to swap the caddy with no problem at all, but when it came to switching the faceplate, all my progress came to a screeching halt. I must have a later Pismo series (when they were offering a trade-in for 5300 owners) because the faceplate of my Pismo WILL NOT fit the Matsushita drive. The mechanism is way different then what the author of the illustrated guide said. There are NO screws on the top of my original Pismo DVD. They are all on the bottom. On top of that, the eject button and the manual eject button seems to be switched. I guess I have to go with the "filing" method unless you know of a source for Pismo DVD bezels (my bezel has a serial number of JPC9DB0018, the DVD by the way is made by LG Electronics, Inc. made in August 2000).

I have no problems (Apple Profiler was able to recognize the drive) with regular CD's (just installed Toast), with DVD's (just played the Matrix), and I just backed up some files onto a CDRW. All this without a faceplate, but I hope to solve that soon or with some help from you and your readers.
Thanks, Derrick"

I don't know any source of the sidepanels, but suggested he try talking to www.pbparts.com to see if they can order one. The other option is just to file the cover as a reader noted in the first article photos here on the drive.

A Lombard owner posted this drive database report

Date Posted: 9/4/2001
Interface: Expansion Bay
System: PowerBook G3 Lombard (1999) running OS 9.1
Comments:
" I also purchased the drive from ebay.com. No problem installing the drive. Expect the face plate from the Lombard cd drive does not fit, so I had to modify the face plate on the DVD/CDRW drive.

Can't play DVD as we know. I can't seem to boot up from the DVD/CDRW drive with MacOSX cd for installation or Mac OS 9.1 cd. I was wondering if anyone else had the same proplem with the drive.

One other question, does anyone know where i can get parts for the powerbook Lombard? I need to get another caddy for the CD drive. "

(I don't know if his Lombard was a 400mhz model with DVD decoder chip, otherwise no Apple DVD player version will work, regardless of the DVD ROM drive brand)
Since the cases of the PB G3 firewire and lombard are similar (the same battery even fits) I suspect the faceplate may be the same - but one reader noted that it may depend on which brand of drive came with the powerbook (apple used at least 2 different brands of drives). The LG drives as noted above do not have a compatible side cover.
For powerbook parts, the best source I know is www.pbparts.com

Problem reports sent via email on 9/4/2001:

" Hi Mike,
I haven't checked the dvd playback issue your site spoke of, however I think I may have found another problem.
I have several powerbooks, One pismo and several lombards.
After installing the matshita dvd combo drives UJDA710 I have been unable to boot off of either OS 9.0.4, 9.1 or OS X cd's in a lombard machine. I have checked and have had the same results with both lombards with and without dvd decoders on the logice board (400 mhz dvd and 333 mhz cd). Both machines recognize the drive and have no problems reading and recognizing CD's in both OS 9.1 or X but I have not been able to boot from a cd with either machine. Even Command+Shift+Option+Delete would not boot it, in fact no key combination I tried at start up worked. On a hunch I tried booting off a CD holding the "C" key at start up with my Pismo.....Ureka!
Not sure if anyone else has had this problem or not!
John C."

The "C" key is usually the first one people try when booting from CD :-). The Command...Delete key sequence forces an ignore of the startup disk I think. The other tip to try if all else fails is holding down the Option key at boot. (Noted in some past firewire drive reviews here - at least this works for OpenFirmware Macs, not sure about others.)

" Hay Mike,
I have emailed you twice about the Combo Drive. I am having problems with its DVD use. I cannot get a DVD to mount. The only DVD I was able to mount posted a message that I was not using a DVD with the correct Region. I ran all the DVD Region Utilities I could find on the internet to get it to work. The software says that the drive is locked in zone 2, that there are still 4 region switches left, but I cannot change the region. I am not even sure if these are the correct listings for the drive since the utilities read some internal apple files to get the information, so the information might be about my Apple DVD drive.

When I load a DVD all I get is a LOUD spin-up noise and a few other squeaks and rattles. Sometimes my computer will freeze all together. Also, if I boot with the combo drive in, there is a long delay right after the apple Ethernet extension, before the rest of the extensions. Removing the drive will continue startup right away.

I was hoping you could get me the older DVD player file that worked for another user, or connect me with him so we can exchange the file. None of the versions I have will make it work.

I wouldnąt be so mad if I had another Carriage to load the drive in my book. The price is still ok just for a burner, but taking it all apart to switch from the DVD drive to the Combo Drive just blows...
Jeff B. "

Problem report from the 9/4/2001 news page here regarding reading DVD-R burned discs:

" Hi Mike,
Could you please post this to your page. I absolutely, positively think the recent DVD/CDRW combo drive mod for Pismo PowerBooks is the best "do it yourself, bang for your buck" upgrade you can make, I have run into no glitches at all, until yesterday, when I was doing an Apple Demo Day for CompUSA.

I burned a a Star Wars Fan DVD with Duality/ Troops/ The first 8 minutes from the four movies/ Star Dudes ... well the burn went fine, and it played nicely on the Dual 800 G4 I used. I took it home and it played great with chapter selection on my Samsung home player .... I went to put it in my Pismo mod Combo drive and it would not even mount it. Can you see if your other readers expierience this?

I guess the issue is the drive reading mastered DVDRs. I put a friends APPLE OEM DVDROM drive back into my Pismo and it worked fine.
Philip S"

If any owners of this drive can comment on this let me know.

• Original Article and build/mod photos of Matshita UJDA 710 in PB G3 firewire
• Complete Build Guide w/photos of each step for swapping the UJDA 710 in PB G3 expansion bay caddy