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Replace iMac FP Optical Drive

belvdr

belvdr

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 15, 2005
5,945
1,372
I have a flat panel iMac with a SuperDrive. My dad recently purchased a DVD+R/VCR unit and has been dubbing our home movies over. However, I'd like to edit some of these with iMovie. Alas, my SuperDrive is a DVD-R only model, and I'd like to replace it with a new DVD+R DL if possible.

I took my iMac apart last night and the drive is a standard ATA drive, and the front panel of the drive has been removed. The tray looks to be thinner than the DVD+R DL I have in my PC, so I didn't try swapping them.

Has anyone ever replaced a flat panel iMac's SuperDrive or Combo Drive? Which model did you use?
 
rainman::|:|

rainman::|:|

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2002
5,438
2
iowa
Which iMac are you talking, G4 or G5? They're both flat panel after all but very different. I think the former would work, the latter probably not. But no promises, they could have found a special tray-load drive for the G4 iMac to save space...

edit: even if you did, I think the burner has to be Apple supported (read: installed) to work with iMovie and iDVD. Sorry.
 
bokdol

bokdol

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2002
897
35
VA
if it is the round base imac g4 it is easy. and uses thew same ata drive. i have changed a few. but only from the pioneer brand. there are some dvd drives that are longer but the hight is the same. one issue that you may run into is the rom. it should be flashed to the mac rom or osx will not recognize it. go to macsales.com and look at the list of drives that will work for the mac. your father's drive may not work correctly.
 
belvdr

belvdr

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 15, 2005
5,945
1,372
Yeah, it's a flat panel G4.

I took the unit apart and the drive is a standard drive. I also noticed there is a fan _inside_ the superdrive too. I wish I could get an iMac G5 and be done with all of this.

What about some of the external LaCie's? Do they work with iMovie and iDVD?
 
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