[mad cow disease]

I am trying to upgrade a G4 tower with the equivalent of a superdrive because the local Apple specialist wants $150 for the drive, which is ridiculous.

Now I know I can pick up a state-of-the-art DVD-RW/etc. for less than $70 shipped to my door, but here's the problem: the drive needs to be bootable.

In my experience only Apple-branded drives have been bootable, but are there any drives with firmware hacks which would allow this? If they were bootable out of the box that'd be even better.

Any advice appreciated.

[Luca Rescigno]

According to the XLR8 Your Mac drive compatibility database, the Pioneer DVR-109 will boot from CDs and DVDs just fine. It requires Patchburn 3 for burning capability, but it will boot just fine without any hacks or firmware updates.

[rjenkinson]

use xlrateyourmac's drive database for this. leave everything blank except for the type of drive, the model of your G4 and your OS version. then search the page for the word bootable.

-r.

[IceEnclosure]

DVR-109 by Pioneer. Dual Layer bla bla bla

NO NEED for Patchburn under Tiger, for me at least

I have a report submitted at the database on xlr8.

Awesome drive.