Is there an internal DVD reader/CD writer that will replace my CD only in my iMac G3? If so where might I find one?
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DVD for G3
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It's the slot loading. I put a CD-RW into it when I first got it and it stuck. It didn't show up on the screen and I couldn't eject it. So I took it apart and removed it. It doesn't look like any PC drive I've ever seen so I thought it might difficult to find. This is my first Mac and it's a learning experience. I've been building pc's since my Radio Shack Model 1. Apple does things differently.
The slot-load drives for the iMac G3 can be found, but given how old those machines are they're not exactly plentiful. They also cost more than a standard optical drive. Here's one that I found, and I'm sure more are out there.
You might check ebay as well.
You might check ebay as well.
thank you very much. The other person was right. It is cheaper to buy an external fire wire unit. What I am trying to accomplish is to upgrade the operating system and install a larger hard drive. It now has a 750 processor with 1G or ram but only a 10 Gb hard drive running 10.3.9. I have plenty of hard drives but don't know how to install a later operating system with the machine as it now is. Also, what is the latest OSX that would be practical to install on this machine?
Tiger runs fine on the slot loaders with more than 512mb of ram, 1 gig optimal. Done it plenty of times. Also have a 500mhz imac g3 with only 384mb of ram running Tiger.
Finding the dvd/cd drive you need is pricey saw one on ebay yesterday for 44 bucks. They are the same large drives that fit the Cube G4.
Agreed--10.4 Tiger. Runs well, you've got plenty of RAM for it, and can handle a modern version of Safari (you do need to download it separately, though--Software Update didn't give it to me automatically when I set up a 10..4 machine recently).
Leopard isn't supported on that machine, and while you might be able to use a hack to get it installed, it's probably not worth the hassle.
If you replace the internal hard drive, the easiest procedure is probably to get an external FW case for the new drive, format it, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to the new one, then swap them. Should just boot at that point, and you can then Archive and Install Tiger when you get a working optical drive/are ready to.
Keep in mind that your iMac probably doesn't support internal drives larger than 137GB--I don't think anything in the G3 era did. No point in buying anything bigger than 120GB, not that there's all that much available in ATA drives anymore.
Leopard isn't supported on that machine, and while you might be able to use a hack to get it installed, it's probably not worth the hassle.
If you replace the internal hard drive, the easiest procedure is probably to get an external FW case for the new drive, format it, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to the new one, then swap them. Should just boot at that point, and you can then Archive and Install Tiger when you get a working optical drive/are ready to.
Keep in mind that your iMac probably doesn't support internal drives larger than 137GB--I don't think anything in the G3 era did. No point in buying anything bigger than 120GB, not that there's all that much available in ATA drives anymore.