Enable LibreDrive on Mac Easily: Follow These Simple Instructions

Well, today I wanted to mess around with ripping some Blu-rays and DVDs on my Mac. I’d heard about this thing called LibreDrive that lets you get at the raw data on discs without all the copy protection hassles. Sounded pretty neat, so I decided to give it a shot.

First, I did a little digging to figure out what LibreDrive even was. Turns out, it’s basically a mode you can put certain optical drives into where they just give you the straight data off the disc, no questions asked. No region coding, no encryption, nothing. Just raw files. You need a compatible drive, of course, but if you’ve got one, LibreDrive lets you bypass all that DRM stuff.

So, step one was seeing if my drive was even capable of this LibreDrive thing. I dug around online and found a few lists of drives that are supposed to work. It was a bit of a pain to cross-reference model numbers and all that, but eventually, I confirmed that my Blu-ray drive was on the list. Sweet!

Next up, I had to actually enable LibreDrive on it. This is where it got a little hairy. Turns out, you need to mess with the drive’s firmware. Firmware, that’s basically the low-level software that runs the drive itself. Not something I’d ever messed with before. But hey, that’s what the internet’s for, right?

I tracked down some instructions on how to flash new firmware onto the drive. Seemed a bit risky, but as long as I followed the steps exactly, it should be okay. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Bricking a $100 drive? Nah, I got this.

The process involved downloading a special firmware file and then running a command-line tool to write it to the drive. I made sure to double-check, triple-check everything before hitting Enter. Fingers crossed! Then I typed in the command and held my breath.

• First, Open the “System Preferences” app. You can find it in your Dock or by searching for it using Spotlight.
• Second, Click on the “Security & Privacy” icon.
• Third, Go to the “Privacy” tab.
• Fourth, In the left sidebar, scroll down and select “Accessibility”.
• Fifth, Click the lock icon at the bottom left corner of the window to make changes. You may be prompted to enter your administrator password.
• Sixth, Click the “+” button under the list of apps to add a new application.
• Seventh, Navigate to the location of the application you want to grant accessibility access to. Select the application and click “Open”.
• Eighth, Make sure the checkbox next to the application is checked.
• Ninth, Repeat steps 4-8 for “Screen Recording”.
• Tenth, Close the “Security & Privacy” preferences window.

A few tense moments later, the tool said it was done. Success! I rebooted my Mac for good measure, then fired up MakeMKV to see if it worked. And there it was, LibreDrive status: Enabled. Yes! Now I could finally rip my discs without any of that copy protection nonsense getting in the way.

It was a bit of an adventure, I gotta say. Definitely not something I’d recommend for the faint of heart. But if you’re willing to get your hands a little dirty, it’s pretty awesome to have this kind of control over your own hardware. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some Blu-rays to rip!