I’m ready to start ripping DVD’s on my newly built Unraid server.  In order to do it efficiently I ordered a SATA Optical Drive and my case (Fractal Node 804) has a slot in the front panel for just such a device.

In the interim, I have an old Apple USB Superdrive.  I plugged it in the server ……….and ……….nothing happened.  The disk wouldn’t insert.  It was like it was dead.   I plugged it in my laptop and it worked fine.  The dirty dogs at Apple make it so that their proprietary drive needs a wake up command that the Mac OS of course gives it.

SSH into your Unraid server and issue the following command.  If there is a disk in the slot it was auto-magically get sucked in.

sg_raw /dev/sr0 EA 00 00 00 00 00 01

In order to rip DVD’s directly into your file system in Unraid you need to add an app called “MakeMKV”. Once installed click on the logs to view.  We are looking for something specific.

MakeMKV Logs (click pics to enlarge)

Scroll through the logs until you find the section that deals with check-optical-drive.sh

[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: executing...
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: looking for usable optical drives...
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: found optical drive [/dev/sr0, /dev/sg4], group 19.
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: exited 0.

The app MakeMKV found your optical drive but it isn’t visible inside the container.  My drives are /dev/sr0 and /dev/sg4.  Go to your Edit Settings for MakeMKV and click the Advanced View slider and add the following command in the Extra Parameters section.  BE SURE AND ADD YOUR CORRECT /dev NUMBERS.  The readme for MakeMKV with instructions can be found here. Go to the part where it says “Access To Optical Drive(s)”.

--device /dev/sr0 --device /dev/sg4

Extra Parameters (click pic to enlarge)

Now your Superdrive is woken up and exposed to MakeMKV and you can start ripping.