Help. Mac Mini Superdrive died. Need external drive.

[mozmac]

I'm looking to get an external Firewire DVD burner to replace the Superdrive in my Mini that isn't working anymore. The Mini is out of warranty, so getting Apple to replace it isn't an option.

I'm looking to spend $100 and want something compatible with iLife '06. Are there any recommendations? I've heard mixed review of Lacie drives.

 

[velocityg4]

Have you considered replacing the defunct internal drive. Here is a very nice guide for disassembling the mini. This database has a good list of drives you can check out with thorough reports by owners, for drive type do "DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW" for Select Interface type choose "IDE" and Mac Model choose "Apple Mac Mini" for more hits than "Apple Mac Mini Intel". Here is the Pioneer from the list of drives

By the way most slim slot loading for laptops that use an IDE connector should work. Pioneer and Sony are both usually quite Apple friendly even some lightscribe drives work though you will need a third party app and driver to print on lightscribe discs.

 

[mozmac]

I don't want to take apart the Mac Mini because that is the root of the problem. The drive itself isn't bad, but something happened when I put the Mini back together after upgrading the RAM. I thought I had it back on correctly, but I bent some of the metal pins. So, we just want to get an external DVD burner and not mess with the internal works of an ingeniously small, compact internal design.