Add a superdrive to a G5 tower

Sorry, I don't know of a UK equivalent of OWC. However this can give you an idea of what is usable in a G5, and you can purchase from you're own local spot.

http://eshop.macsales.com/Static_Pa.../powermac_072704.html&Title=PowerMac Upgrades

Uh...

You sure all G5s didn't ship with super drives?

appleretailguy said:

You sure all G5s didn't ship with super drives?

Click to expand...

The combo drive is a CTO option.

m_reeves said:

I bought a 1.6 G5 tower as soon as they came out a year ago. I was too cheap to get a combo drive. Now I want to burn some DVDs.

Click to expand...

Hi Martin,

When you say that you were too cheap to get a combo drive, I assume you mean a SuperDrive? If so, you would have downgraded the optical drive as a CTO option when you placed your order for the G5. If you bought a stock G5, you should have a SuperDrive, and therefore the ability to burn DVDs.

If not, http://www.dabs.com (UK retailer) have Pioneer 108 drives for a little over £50, and one of these should be suitable for your needs. From what I've read, they're Mac compatible right out of the box. They write at max 16x and can burn +/- media and double-layer discs. In contrast, the SuperDrive in my rev. B G5 is a Pioneer 107D, which will write at max 8x and can only burn single-layer discs. The spec sheet for the 108 can be found here.

I imagine the physical installation process would be very simple, but probably best to cross that bridge once you've purchased a drive.

Hope this is of some help.

equivalent to OWC

You should be able to upgrade your drive without any difficulty. Just make sure that you choose a pioneer dvr 108 or a sony and you shouldn't have any issues. I believe that the early G5's use a Sony DRU*** model and all the other drives in Macs are Pioneer or Matshita drives. Just make sure that the jumpers on the back of the drive are set the same, probably Master or CS (Cable Select)

I buy all my stuff from one of two places ccl computers(it's in Bradford) (you may have to use netscape or explorer) as safari doesn't always work) or you could try aria (Manchester) they have just started selling apple stuff but there PC track record has always being pretty good. I particularly like there little feedback forms about all there products.

Hope that helps

I also fitted a dual layer Pioneeer 108 to my G5 tower today. I also had the tray jamming problem and fiddled around with different screws. Won't work as there are two lugs in the way Tthat fix the drive locking clips to the G5 chassis. There is really simple solution. Open the drive tray and unclip the very front bit of the tray which comes off really easily.

Problem solved.

You could sandpaper the top few mm off and put the front back. Not sure I'll bother as the G5 has the metal door to keep the dust out anyway.

Haven't tried the drive yet but I've got Toast and Popcorn both see the drive OK. Haven't got any dual layer blanks to try yet either.

Just in case...

http://www.info.apple.com/usen/cip/index.html

The directions.

m_reeves said:

I got a new super driver today, the Pioneer DVR-108. Fitting was a breeze. Apple makes it very easy to get at the Drive and replace it.

I do have a problem though. The drive is slightly higher than the old CD Rom Drive. Using the orginal feet that were fitted to the CD Drive it pushes up the drive by about 2mm (the screws have a small standoff on them), and when it opens, the door catches on the top of the case apature.

Does anyone know what type of screw thread is used in the bottom of a DVD drive. I guess it must be a standard one and I am going to need to get some without the standoff....

thanks again.

Martin

Click to expand...

~Hi mate it easy to fir the new drive, but if you had a sony drive in your G5 then you may find that you will have to remove the front part of the drive tray so it can eject from the G5 and also you may find that you will have to tracce down new screws for the drive if you had a sony one in it before, due to the different mont hight of the sony and pioneer drives.

You will also need a patch for the drive to run in your iapps if you use them, which can be found here, http://www.patchburn.de/download.html

You can also de-regionalize you drive with firmware pach, http://pioneerdvd.rpc1.org/ but you need a PC or an external case to patch (if you use VPC) Or you can flash on a mac with this app found here http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=30235&start=0

My drive was not a Sony but a Pioneer 106 - still had the catching problem. iTunes player and DVD player ran fine without any patches, but I've run the Patchburn thing anyway to get iDVD and burning support

Fastest blank DVD I could find today was 8x - goes brilliantly.

Now need to find cheap dual layers and faster sinlge layer.

I did patch my Pioneer 07 Superdrive so it burns at any speed whatsoever without looking if disks are cert8x or not, so I burn 4x dvdmedia at 8x all the time without problems...

wich is nice because at the time I bought my G5 8x media wasn't available mostly... even from apple since they still advertised my G5 as: 4x SuperDrive... but it came with 8x ;-)

buy fom http://www.overclockers.co.uk they have good choice and have a great site, iv used em b4

I've tried filing down the front plate off the ray but it all actually works better without it on at all.

Burnt some 8X DVDs - great speed - can't find any 12x DVDs to ry that which the 108 is suppose dto handle.