Modify Apple's CD/DVD drivers to mount third party drives.

Several readers emailed to point out an excellenct article in c't Magazine that showed how to use ResEdit on Apple CD/DVD drivers to make them recognize any CD ROM drives - not just Apple's. One drawback was the fact you had to keep two copies of the CD extension active: the original for Apple's drives, and a modified version for non-Apple drives. Thanks to Anthony Saxton, the author of ClipDragon, it's now posible to have a single modified driver work with both Apple CD drives, and any other SCSI CD ROM drive. The screeshots below are for the Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.0.1. with additional descriptions for:
Apple CD-ROM 5.4.2 Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.2 Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.2.2 Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.1 Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.5 (no change since 1.3.1) Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.4/1.4.3 (no change since 1.3.1)

Open a copy of the CD Driver in ResEdit and find the DRVR resources. Open them with a double-click.

Open ID# 32 with a double-click. If you get an error about the resource size, open it using the menu item "Open using Hex Editor"

The screenshot above for the Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.0.1 is representative of the changes to be made in all the drivers. Find the original value at the appropriate row and offset, and change it to the new value.

Below is a table for first change in the various AppleCD drivers.

Version 5.4.2 1.0.1 1.2 1.2.2 Row 06B0 06C8 06C0 06D8 Offset 06B6 06C8 06C6 06D8 Original Value 6704 6704 6706 6706 New Value 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71

1.3.1

06D0

06D6

6706

4E71

Before

After

The graphic above, and the table below show the second change to be made to the driver.
Version 5.4.2 1.0.1 1.2 1.2.2 1.3.1 Row 09C0 0A10 0AD0 0AE8 0AE0 Offset 09C6 0A10 0AD6 0AE8 0AE6 Original Value 6606 4A84 6700 0086 6606 4A84 6700 0086 6604 4A84 6706 6604 4A84 6706 6604 4A84 6706 New Value 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71

When you're finished, replace the original driver with the new one and restart your computer. Your Apple supplied CD ROM driver will now mount most SCSI CD ROM Drives! Unfortunately, the edit doesn't work with every combination of CD drive and computer, but of the thousands that have performed the edit, I have received only a few emails of failure. One reader wrote to say renaming the "Toast CD Reader" by adding a SPACE as the first character in the name - forcing it to load first, allows CD burners to work with the new driver. Your milage may vary. :)