2 replies to this topic

[ihaul]

I posted this on another forum and got no responses. Perhaps it is too specialized to interest most people or maybe it is not possible.


I have a dual boot (XP and OS X) Asus 1005HA that is working very  well except for the annoying inability to use DVD player to view the  ripped movies I keep on my SD card. I know there are other programs but  I really like DVD player. DVD player won't start up without a DVD  player attached. The default requirement is a built-in DVD player and I  did manage to change the DVDplayback file to allow an external USB  player. I really would like to run DVD player without any drive  attached but I'm beginning to believe that is not possible. If you try to start up without a drive, you get an error message. Failing  that, I am wondering if it is possible to set up a USB stick that  emulates a DVD drive. Everything I have been able to find (after hours  of searching) focuses on making USB sticks bootable with the intention  of installing something from them - not appearing as DVD drives to the  system. What I want is to fool OS X into thinking that there is a DVD  drive installed in the USB slot so I can start DVD player up. It is a lot easier to carry around an extra thumb drive than a DVD player. It  doesn't have to do anything else - just sit there until OS X scans the  bus and says, (figuratively) "Oh, I see there is a USB DVD player  plugged in so I guess I'll let this bozo start up DVD player." I don't  know enough about this to know if it is a simple thing or not. But, if  it is possible and you know how, would you please share that  information? Thank you.

  ihaul
  Asus eee Pc 1005HA
  XP professional & OSX 10.5.7
  iDeneb install

[ihaul]

I found a resolution to this problem. In case anyone else wishes to do this, here is what I did...
First, I replaced the modified DVDplayback file with the original, unmodified file that looks for an internal DVD drive. If you never modified yours, you can skip this step.
Open Toast Titanium (I have version 7.1.3 so the newer versions may differ)
Click on 'Data' tab
Select 'DVD-ROM (UDF)' under the 'Formats' pane
Click 'New Disc' at the bottom of the Data window
Name it whatever you want
Under the 'File' menu, choose 'Save as Disc Image...'
Navigate to desktop and click 'Save'
A few seconds later you have a disk image on your desktop
Quit Toast

Any time you want to use DVD player, double click the disk image before you open DVD player.  Toast will automatically open with your image in the Image File window. Click on 'Mount Image' and close Toast. You will have a nice, shiny, new DVD disk showing on your desktop. You can now open DVD Player and it will detect the mounted DVD image as being in an internal DVD drive and will run. I suppose you could also write a script to mount it automatically but doing it manually only takes seconds.

ihaul
  Asus eee Pc 1005HA
  XP professional & OSX 10.5.7
  iDeneb install

[bisk]

Doesn't work on Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

Cool idea though !