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Powerbook G4 optical drive

Submitted by GEOS on July 2, 2008 - 7:45pm. PowerPC Macs

I've got a quick question here. The combo drive on my 12" Powerbook G4 is starting to go out and I am looking to get a replacement. Does the 12" use a different drive than the 15" and 17" AlBooks? I know the TiBooks used a different one, but I was unsure about whether or not the drives among the 12"-17" models were swapable.

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coius's picture

I am pretty sure that they we

Submitted by coius on July 2, 2008 - 10:52pm.

I am pretty sure that they went with regular Slot-Load Optical drives at that point. You should just get a standard DVD-+RW and throw it in. Apple stopped making special mechanisms around the time of the 12" PowerBook. Mainly, since they had no way to put special mechanisms into a laptop that small, so what would be the point.

Maybe look on iFixit? That may help

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GEOS's picture

Yeah, I could get an aftermar

Submitted by GEOS on July 3, 2008 - 2:39am.

Yeah, I could get an aftermarket drive, but I've had bad luck with non-Apple writers in Macs. I put a new superdrive in our eMac and trying to burn any sort of media is a PITA. Thats using Toast 8 or 9. I'll probably just get a used Apple drive on ebay assuming they are all the same.

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ibub's picture

12 inch G4 Opti Drive

Submitted by ibub on July 3, 2008 - 3:52pm.

A few weeks ago OWC was clearing them out via their Garage Sale page - hard to find a used one you'd trust to warrant the effort of using it as a replacement, they're the most delicate (and failure prone) of the Apple notebook drives in my experience.

Good Luck

» Things of quality have no fear of time,
ibub



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Purchase a quality brand . . . .

Submitted by mutant_pie on July 4, 2008 - 2:44am.

In my humble opinion, Pioneer makes some of the best (durable, and close enough to leading edge) equipment. I put a Pioneer DVD burner in my G4 TiPowerbook, and it has been awesome.

Mutant_Pie

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dankephoto's picture

another vote for a _new_ drive

Submitted by dankephoto on July 4, 2008 - 3:56pm.

I put a Pioneer DVR-K05 in my TiBook too. But the 12" PBooks' opticals are such a time-consuming PITA to replace, I'd never put an unknown used drive in one, not worth it IMO.

dan k

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