G4 Sawtooth zip drive waste of space

[OttawaGuy]

Hi,
I have a Gg4 sawtooth with the built in zip drive,
I will never use the zip drive, so I wanted to know if I could reclaim the space and use it for something else (like a second dvd burner).

Can the opening / slot for the zip drive be modded?
Thanks

 

[WildCowboy]

It would take quite a bit of work to cut the chassis to allow you to fit a DVD drive in there.

Another hard drive perhaps? Or how about a Multiport?

 

[Raid]

Hi,
I have a Gg4 sawtooth with the built in zip drive,
I will never use the zip drive, so I wanted to know if I could reclaim the space and use it for something else (like a second dvd burner).

Can the opening / slot for the zip drive be modded?
Thanks

Hey, I actually did mod my G4 Sawtooth and put a 5.25" DVD Ram drive in there. Unfortunately this does involve actually cutting into the case and getting creative with how you mount it to the CD drive above. (I got it to stay put using zip ties and double sided foam tape. ) It didn't look too pretty but it worked absolutely fine with no reading or burning issues.

The hardest part is of course cutting the case... on the front of the tower the lower bay part of the case frame will prevent a 5.25" drive from being inserted (like the stock CD burner above). To see what I mean just try putting the drive in the lower bay, you'll see it's pushed back into the power supply. However If you cut a pretty significant notch in the front tower support you can bring the drive flush with the front and have just enough room to fit the drive and the connected cables.

If you do decide to cut the case cover all electrics with cloth to catch the metal shavings and vacuum the interior before carefully removing the cloth to insure no nasty little bits of metal are left inside the machine.

 

[SawTooth500]

I put a 200gig hdd in place of the ZipDrive.

No cutting, no nothing. Pop out the Zip, pop in the hdd and hook up the connections. Not hard at all. You won't get the full 200 gig unless you come up with drivers for the larger drive. Sawtooth will only recognize the first 128 gigs, unless you use some thing like this:
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.html

Oh yeah, use a 3.5" drive. Stick the 5.25" down at the bottom of the case in one of the spaces provided for it.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

I put a 200gig hdd in place of the ZipDrive.

No cutting, no nothing. Pop out the Zip, pop in the hdd and hook up the connections. Not hard at all. You won't get the full 200 gig unless you come up with drivers for the larger drive. Sawtooth will only recognize the first 128 gigs, unless you use some thing like this:
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.html

Oh yeah, use a 3.5" drive. Stick the 5.25" down at the bottom of the case in one of the spaces provided for it.

wierd that i did the same thing but my hdd wouldn't show up in finder. i just immediatly thought that the optical drive and hdd be on the same ide controller? when i switched my cases around the other one had the piece to cover the empty zip slot.

 

[SawTooth500]

Forgive me, I forgot to mention setting the jumpers on the back of the drive.
It's been a year since I did this. What ever drive you have will come with a guide to set the jumpers, or the manufacturers website will cover it.

 

[OttawaGuy]

Thanks for the info.