[plasticmoz]

Can anyone give me some insight into what may be wrong with my Rev C. Powerbook G4 1.33 12" laptop?

Basically it boots up, but the moment I put a CD into the drive the screen goes blank and I have to hard boot. When I boot with a CD in the drive it just spins endlessly and I have to power it down by holding down the power button.

Simply a replacement drive needed? (no Applecare) or something more? There was also some video corruption a couple of times on booting (messed up parts of the screen), but for the most part it boots fine if I get the CD out of there.

[SSharon]

Is there any obvious physical damage? Is that area squeezed a lot during transport?

[plasticmoz]

nope, no damage.

[chipchen]

Well, without looking at it... sounds like you may have some logic board problems. If you're getting distorted video and requiring hard reboots after just a cd in the drive... you may have some shorts in the board.

Any water or humidity get into the system?

[pelai]

Hi,
I got the same problem as you had a while ago with my rev a 1ghz 17" powerbook. I got a complete freeze on inserting any CD. It turned out to be the superdrive that was causing it. Since the PB was under applecare the superdrive was then changed. Unluckily I had to replace the superdrive 3 Times for it to work since every time apple put a new one in there, it must have been a reconditioned article that was malfunctioning. Anyway the third time it did work and now I have been using the PB for 6 months without any issues what so ever, burning cds and DVDs.
Hope this helps!

[amazing]

My combo drive is working fine in my 1.33 12", but since I wanted fast DVD burning I put together a firewire 16X burner. It's much, much faster than any internal Superdrive, burns DL (for when the DL disks come down in price) and it'll cost much less than any repair. $50 for the case, $32 for the burner

macally PHC-500BC FireWire / USB2.0 External Enclosure for 5.25" CD/DVD ROM or ATA HDD - Retail at Newegg.com
Pioneer 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Read Black ATAPI Model DVR-111D - OEM at Newegg.com

Of course, since it's out of Applecare, you could try replacing the burner yourself. You can find the guide at ifixit.com but the 12" is a really complicated disassemble...

[rjt1000]

Hi,

The superdrive in my Rev C PB G4 12 1.33 (Matshita UJ-825) works fine but really needs a firmware revision, although none has been made available. I am now having difficulty finding current DVD-R media that will write at more than 2 x--a real drag in this 4 x burner.

I need to burn on the road, so I have been considering this 8 x MCE Superdrive upgrade for PBs at $129--and they will install for $49 which looks like a decent deal.

MCE 8X DVD±R/RW + DL "SuperDrive" Upgrade for PowerBook G4

rjt1000