Replacement optical drive for my powerbook lombard

my opinion is to go on newegg and get the pioneer dvr-k16. its a dvd burner that comes up as a superdrive, and it works great, i have one in my pismo. its also about $74! so its worth it.

i think that any drive will be bootable, but you might have trouble if the drive isnt set to master by default. but my suggestion is to go with drives that apple uses like sony and pioneer. ive had my burner for about 3 months now, and im very happy with it!

so while I concur with the specific recommendation given above, you certainly don't have to limit yourself. In particular, you might consider getting a slotload mechanism instead of trayload (I prefer SL drives myself.)

zipzoomfly.com has a number of decent deals as well BTW.

I have a page on replacement drives in Apple expansion bay modules. I have another page detailing how to set the EBM interface to force Master bus status (needed for 'C'-key CD boot capability.)

dan k

edit: PS- here's some superdrive candidates, all in the US$75 to US$85 range, sucked off zipzoomfly's site:
NEC ND-6750A 16X Double Layer DVD±RW
Pioneer DVR-K16 8X Dual Layer Slim DVD±RW Drive
LG GWA-4082N 8X Dual Layer Slim DVD±RW Drive
Liteon SLW-831S 8X Internal Dual Layer DVD±RW
Panasonic UJ-845-B 8X Slim DVD±RW Multi Drive (Slot Load)
Pioneer DVR-K06 8X Dual Layer DVD±RW slot load
Pioneer DVR-K05 8X Dual Layer DVD±RW slot load

Frankly, I wouldn't bother with anything less than a superdrive, even a plain ol' CD-RW drive costs nearly as much, unless you can find a deal on a used one. Plus, with the now low cost of DVD+/- media, backing up onto DVDs is loads faster than onto CDR/W disks.
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edit more:
I eat my words (sort of), for here's a combo drive for $50, which is not too bad a deal at all:
Sony CRX850E-10 DVD 8x + CD-RW 24x24x24 Slim Combo Drive
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