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iMac DVD drive to Powermac G4

Submitted by geophile on January 23, 2006 - 8:42pm. Hardware Hacks

Hi all. My Imac 400 DV just died, and I bought a used powermac G4 466 (digital audio). Can I use the DVD drive from the imac in the new machine? (I'd like to place it in the spot where a zip drive is now installed) If it's possible, would it be bootable? Would I need to change the jumper selection? Thanks a lot.

-geophile

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Smiththers's picture

if you did some serious hacki

Submitted by Smiththers on January 23, 2006 - 10:31pm.

if you did some serious hacking it would work, the cable on the imac drive would have to be hacked and 5v applied to the right lines on it. plus you would have to hack the case to allow it to fit inplace of the zip drive. the drive itself will work just fine as i have the same drive in a usb case, and hacked the cable on the drive. if you remove the board thats on the back of the drive you can set master or slave. im sure someone here can explain how to hack the cable better then i can, if i could show you a picture of mine then i would.. the drive runs on only 5v, its kinda slow but it does it work and it is bootable if its on master, remember to set the original cdrom to slave if so. there are on the back of the imac drive, that board i was talking about, there are contacts where two wires can be soldered to it for the 5v lines, then just adapt a regular IDE cable to fit on the back where the data pins are. it will be very hard to mod the stock ribbon cable to make it work unless you pull it out of the machine.

» -Justin
EVGA 680i, E6850@ 3.4ghz, 2gb G-Skill, 8800gtx, OCZ 700w PS. 250gb + 500gb Seagate Sata, ASUS Sata DVDR.

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simon_C's picture

or, unscrew the 44pin plate o

Submitted by simon_C on January 23, 2006 - 11:00pm.

or, unscrew the 44pin plate off the back of the cdrom drive, get a slim cd-rom to IDE adaptor (like this one: http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPath/47/products_id/108 ), and plug it in that way. under the 44pin foxconn connector on the imac drives is a standard laptop style 50pin connector, for which that adaptor was made.

» Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail - upgrade it,
charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick - erase it,
write it, cut it, paste it, save it, load it, check it, quit - rewrite it,
plug it, play it, burn it,

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Smiththers's picture

no way! i didnt know they mad

Submitted by Smiththers on January 23, 2006 - 11:10pm.

no way! i didnt know they made those Smiling

» -Justin
EVGA 680i, E6850@ 3.4ghz, 2gb G-Skill, 8800gtx, OCZ 700w PS. 250gb + 500gb Seagate Sata, ASUS Sata DVDR.

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hacking cough

Submitted by geophile on January 24, 2006 - 12:59am.

Hm. I forgot that the imac used laptop components. That's a bit more of a hack than I think I'm willing to do, if I have to hack the case for it to fit. Especially if I want to use it with a faceplate. Gonna have to backburner this one for a while. I'm basically a newbie when it comes to all this tinkering. I saw another hack someplace that talked about needing a 12v to use a quicksilver processor in a Gigabit, something else I might like to do, but I'm pretty clueless. Can you recommend a good general hack site that shows plenty of pics, that explains some of the electrical stuff, 12v, 5v, etc?

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dankephoto's picture

yes, except . . .

Submitted by dankephoto on January 24, 2006 - 1:45am.

the iMac drive's connector is on the 'wrong' side of the mechanism, so those add-on aftermarket slim-to-desktop adapters will be hanging way off the side of drive, making it tough to put inside a desktop case.

Were I the OP here, I'd save or sell the iMac drive and just go drop $46 on a new desktop 16x dual-layer DVD-R/W mechanism, replacing the original optical drive.

dan k

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good looking deal, there

Submitted by geophile on January 24, 2006 - 3:20am.

Thanks, danke. I'd been considering that very drive, I just didn't think I'd have a prayer at finding in that cheap.

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