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mduell · Jun 17, 2006, 04:10 PM

Simple as the title sounds, will a Pioneer DVR-K06 fit/work in a 12" PowerBook?

pcummins · Jun 19, 2006, 12:52 AM

It should do - this the same form factor as the other drives (Matsushita) and MCE Tech sells the DVR-K05/6 as an upgrade for the 12" PowerBook. If you buy it as a 3rd party drive best to confirm it is set as a Master IDE device before buying for max compatibility with your PB. (Some drives are Slave set, which causes issues at times from what I hear).

germanmacobserv · Jun 23, 2006, 06:49 PM

I have an 12" 1Ghz DVI and just exchanged the old Superdrive with a DVR-K06. It works perfect and is fully supported by the OS (Apple supported/shipped). Some things you should be a ware of.
a) Taking apart the Powerbook to exchange the optical drive takes a lot of time

Have patience and be careful.
b) My DVR-K06 (and obviously all others) are configured as Cable Select. The 12" has no problem with that. Its get's deteced as master (Unit 0). But I heard of 15" PBs not be compatible with Cable Select Configuration.
c) You have to take the metal front cover off the old drive and replace the plastic cover on the pioneer drive with it. This is a bit tricky, but works.

All in all, the Pioneer is much better than the old drive (Mathsita) and reads DVD-RAM. A worth upgrade in my opinion and you even have a better optical drive than on new macbook (pros) then.
I hope this information is heplful for you.

mduell · Jun 24, 2006, 01:22 AM

Best Buy is doing the swap for $22 (and $22 for the hard drive too). I took the plastic bezel off before I handed over the drive.

The local mac shops wanted $150+ for the swap. Apple wanted $350 for each drive. Crazy ridiculous.

amazing · Jun 24, 2006, 09:32 AM

Wow: that's a great price from Best Buy--please get back to us and tell about the quality of the install! The local Mac shops obviously have a better idea of the labor involved, and also the service experience. Can't believe that Best Buy sees a lot of these installations, and to the uninitiated service tech, it'd be a nightmare.

Is Best Buy an Apple Service Provider and do you still have AppleCare? 'Cause if they're not and you do, what's that do to the AppleCare?

mduell · Jun 24, 2006, 06:19 PM

BBY says they're Apple Authorized. The PowerBook ran out of AppleCare about 6 months ago.

chipchen · Jun 25, 2006, 03:27 AM

I'm a bit confused about this.... Best Buy (I highly doubt they're Apple Certified) is charging $22 for a optical drive install in a PowerBook? They charge more than that for an optical drive install on a desktop... and the drive costs about $80... And it's a LONG repair on a PB 12". Just about everything needs to be removed to get the optical drive out... about 1.5 hours for an experienced technician and probably over 2.5 for an unexperienced technician.

Just sounds weird to me...

mduell · Jun 25, 2006, 11:41 AM

Complete brain-fart. I meant to say CompUSA but for some reason I had Best Buy on the brain (probably because they recently announced they're going to sell Macs). Best Buy refuses to even swap laptop optical drives, and they charge about $50 for hard drive swaps.

For laptops or desktops, CompUSA charges $30 per hardware swap/upgrade, but you get 50% off of additional upgrades performed at the same time; so I'm paying $30+15 for the hard drive and optical drive swap, or about $22 each.

I paid $74 for the SuperDrive and $60 for a 40GB 5400RPM hard drive, both from Newegg.

pcummins · Jun 26, 2006, 12:11 PM

That's pretty good, hopefully CompUSA can figure the 12" out all up, the DVR-K06 is worth the bucks as it's head and shoulders over the Matsushitas. I upgraded to a DVR-K05 on my 15" to replace the UJ-825, never looked back. (Though, I'll probably slot the UJ-825 back in if I sell my PowerBook, if the buyer wants all Apple gear...)