

It’s not entirely clear where the original source of this nvram command comes from, but I discovered it in a bit of a web rabbit hole after following a comment left on a SuperDrive article led to a thread on Apple Discussions and an official support article, which outlines getting a SuperDrive working on unsupported Macs, and which Macs do and don’t support the SuperDrive. Either approach will remove the “mbasd=1” variable from firmware settings on the Mac. If you decide you want to reverse this adjustment, or if you find this approach didn’t work and you want to return to defaults nvram setting for that reason or any other, you can reset the Mac PRAM / NVRAM during system start or clear the nvram variable manually from the command line too. Let us know in the comments below if this trick worked for you.

This should work to enable an Apple External SuperDrive to function as expected on a Mac which is otherwise not supported, but your results may vary. Turn the Mac back on, when the Mac boots up again the SuperDrive should now work as expected.Connect the Apple SuperDrive to the Mac by USB once it is powered off.Shut down the Mac by going to the Apple menu and choosing “Shut Down”.

