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midwinter · May 27, 2002, 05:04 PM

Hi all.

I just purchased a G4/533 from a friend, and I'm interested in replacing the CDROM in it with either a DVD-ROM, a CD-RW, a Combo Drive, or a superdrive at some point down the line. Can anyone point me to sources for compatible drives? This is my first Mac tower, and I've no idea what drives will work. I understand that the Superdrive is a Phillips, and that prices have recently fallen to the sub-$400 range, but I don't know anything about the other drive options.

Second, I'll eventually replace the ATI card in this box with something that has a little more muscle. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers
Scott

bil207 · May 27, 2002, 05:15 PM

I have a G4 533 dual and have replaced the cd/rw with a Toshiba SD-R1202 CD-RW/DVD-ROM and replaced the NVidia gForce 2 with an ATI Radeon 8500 Mac edition.

<a href="http://www.toshiba.com/taissdd/products/features/SDR1202Kit-Over.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.toshiba.com/taissdd/products/features/SDR1202Kit-Over.shtml</a>

<a href="http://ati.com/products/mac/radeon8500me/index.html" target="_blank">http://ati.com/products/mac/radeon8500me/index.html</a>

rambo47 · May 27, 2002, 06:12 PM

Bil207 - does the Toshiba recognize iTunes and Apple's Disk Burner software? Is it bootable? What software do you use to burn a CD? Inquiring minds want to know!

vmarks · May 27, 2002, 06:24 PM

the superdrive is not a philips. It is a Pioneer DVR-104. (Also compatible superdrives are DVR-A04, DVR-103, and DVR-A03.)

<a href="http://208.158.105.20/c_139.htm" target="_blank">www.jazztechnology.com</a> has them, around $327.

For compatibility of other drives that are bootable, look at the <a href="http://xlr8yourmac.com" target="_blank">http://xlr8yourmac.com</a> drive database.

Bil207 - care to sell that nvidia card? email me.

[ 05-27-2002, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: vmarks ]

bil207 · May 27, 2002, 07:08 PM

rambo47,
The Tosiba combo is bootable. I use Toast Titanium 5 for my cd burning and it works fine but I haven't tried to burn with either Disc Burner or iTunes so I don't know if it will work with those or not. After I installed the combo when I started Software Update in OS X and Classic it informed me that DVD player was not installed and asked if I wanted to install the Player, I did and DVD play back in OS X has been flawless. BTW you can get this drive for about $120.00 - $130.00 at most places online.

vmarks,
I am holding on to the NVidia card in case I sell my G4 I'll keep the ATI card for my next Mac.

midwinter · May 28, 2002, 02:08 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by vmarks:
the superdrive is not a philips. It is a Pioneer DVR-104. (Also compatible superdrives are DVR-A04, DVR-103, and DVR-A03.)

<a href="http://208.158.105.20/c_139.htm" target="_blank">www.jazztechnology.com</a> has them, around $327.

For compatibility of other drives that are bootable, look at the <a href="http://xlr8yourmac.com" target="_blank">http://xlr8yourmac.com</a> drive database.

Bil207 - care to sell that nvidia card? email me.<hr /></blockquote>I'm looking very hard at that Toshiba combo drive for $106, which seems to be working fine for most people. I've never heard of jazz technology...can I trust them? Their not having a domain name worries me....

Cheers
Scott

warnergt · May 28, 2002, 05:00 PM

I installed a Pioneer DVR-104 in my G4 DP-500. When I left CDs or DVDs in the drive for prolonged periods, my system would crash -- even OS X! I found the problem. In my "Energy Saver" settings, I had "hard disk sleep" set for 40 minutes. Apparently, it was setting my DVR-104 to sleep but never waking it up.

I set the sleep for "never" and everything works perfectly. iDVD works. Toast works. I can make CDs and DVDs.

Can anyone confirm if this is a problem for Apple-installed drives? Is there a way to let my hard drives go to sleep without killing the DVD drive?

drjoe · May 28, 2002, 08:35 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by midwinter:
[QB]Hi all.

I just purchased a G4/533 from a friend, and I'm interested in replacing the CDROM in it with either a DVD-ROM, a CD-RW, a Combo Drive, or a superdrive at some point down the line. Can anyone point me to sources for compatible drives? fallen to the sub-$400 range,

*****

not a superdrive but in the realm of combo drives, i put the LG drive in a beige DT G3 WIth an XLR8 G4. and an orion class ATI-128 card. It plays DVD's flawlessly. It cost me $125, boots in 10.1.4 and 9.2. Amazing what you can do with a thoroughly obsolete machine ;-)

midwinter · May 28, 2002, 11:57 PM

Thanks.

At this point, I'm trying to figure out the difference between the two listings for the Toshiba combo drive that jazztechnology.com lists. I'm planning on calling tomorrow to find out and (probably) place an order.

Does anyone know why they have two different listings for this drive?

Cheers
Scott

j mars · May 29, 2002, 10:00 AM

Whatever drive you select you need to check its ability to mount the OSX 10.0 CDROM. I have two beige G3's, the AIO would not mount this CD because it was a SCSI Apple CDROM not an ATAPI. I swapped it with the Apple ATAPI in my DT and everything was fine. Then I got another ATAPI CDR for the DT. It is not an Apple, it will read everyone of my CD's except the OSX 10.0 disk so if I need to reinstall OSX I have some hardware swapping to do. I find this very odd as both the OSX Beta and OSX 10.1 updisks do not have this problem. I don't know if it will be a problem on your Mac but you might keep it in mind before getting rid of the original Apple CD drive. You might need to keep it handy to reinstall if you need to reuse the OSX 10.0 CD.

midwinter · May 29, 2002, 01:01 PM

hey guys,

I ordered the toshiba combo from jazztechnology.com today (lord what a cheap price!). I imagine it'll be here early next week. The drive compatibility guide at Xlr8yourmac.com suggests that this should be a painless upgrade.

A few quick questions, though: would it be possible for me to install this drive in the spare drive bay and retain my factory CDROM? Will doing this cause any trouble? If this will work, can anyone point me to where I might pick up a drive door bezel thingy?

Thanks for all the replies. You've all be very helpful. Hopefully this is the last modification I'll be making to this machine for a while.

Cheers
Scott

vmarks · May 29, 2002, 02:16 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by midwinter:
Thanks.

At this point, I'm trying to figure out the difference between the two listings for the Toshiba combo drive that jazztechnology.com lists. I'm planning on calling tomorrow to find out and (probably) place an order.

Does anyone know why they have two different listings for this drive?

Cheers
Scott<hr /></blockquote>Jazztechnology does have their own domain name, but I used the numbers in case of weird DNS-ness.

They show a few different bundles of the drive with different amounts of media, or whether it's an OEM box or retail box drive.

As for using a spare bay, on your powermac, this isn't really possible without serious modification of the lower bay. The lower bay is meant for a zip drive, and will only hold a zip or hard drive. What I did in my powermac was just replace the drive in the upper bay with the DVR-104.

[ 05-29-2002, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: vmarks ]

midwinter · May 29, 2002, 02:37 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by vmarks:
Jazztechnology does have their own domain name, but I used the numbers in case of weird DNS-ness.

They show a few different bundles of the drive with different amounts of media, or whether it's an OEM box or retail box drive.

As for using a spare bay, on your powermac, this isn't really possible without serious modification of the lower bay. The lower bay is meant for a zip drive, and will only hold a zip or hard drive. What I did in my powermac was just replace the drive in the upper bay with the DVR-104.<hr /></blockquote>Thanks. That's what I'd feared. I just thought it might be handy to have two internal drives (for copying CDs)...but I still have my USB cdrw, so I suppose I'll keep it around.

hmmm...it has just occurred to me that I have an internal zip lying around....

Cheers. And thanks again for all your help.

Scott

midwinter · May 29, 2002, 03:19 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by midwinter:
hmmm...it has just occurred to me that I have an internal zip lying around....

Cheers. And thanks again for all your help.

Scott<hr /></blockquote>Not anymore...man that was easy to install!

Cheers
Scott