Imac G5 Intel Superdrive (Late 2006)

[gofferian]

Hello there

I am presently experiencing problems with my superdrive making strange noises, spitting discs out and not even accepting discs unless i push right into the slot. Apple have advised that the drive is knackered and I need a new one.

When i asked the cost they said £175. The mac is out of warranty and is an old mashshita driver UJ85.

Does anyone know of a suitbale replacement? Apple have advised me that I can only purchase from them or an Apple Reseller.

All help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[-hh]

Hello there

I am presently experiencing problems with my superdrive making strange noises, spitting discs out and not even accepting discs unless i push right into the slot. Apple have advised that the drive is knackered and I need a new one.

When i asked the cost they said £175. The mac is out of warranty and is an old mashshita driver UJ85.

Does anyone know of a suitbale replacement? Apple have advised me that I can only purchase from them or an Apple Reseller.

All help would be greatly appreciated.

You have a couple of basic alternatives that are potentially less costly, but they have some trades.

Option #1 would be to let the sleeping dog (bad internal) lie and add an external DVD burner onto your system.

Checking prices on newegg.com, it looks like this would cost around US$50 (plus shipping/handling, VAT, etc) for a USB-based one. Its not the best solution, nor does this address you needing it for UK, but it is a pretty inexpensive & easy consideration...its just not that visually pretty, plus you're dealing with slower USB speeds.

Option #2 would be to find, buy & install the relevant replacement part yourself.

And at least in the USA (again), there are some sources other than Apple, such as welovemacs.com ... it looks like the price would be around US$150 (+S/H)...which at current exchange rates is around £100 equivalent (before S/H, etc)...not exactly cheap.

For the question of who replaces the part, you'll want to find & review one of the "How to Disassemble an iMac G5" websites (here's an example) before deciding if you want to do this yourself, or pay someone else to do it...

...if your £175 price includes everything (including service of assmbly), you can then figure out how much is the cost of service and if that much is worth it to you or not.


-hh

 

[BlackMax]

My superdrive went bad in my G5 a couple of years ago. I sought the least expensive route and replaced it with an ASUS DRW-1604P I had laying around the house. This drive has worked well under Tiger with the help of Patchburn.

You can go to accelerate your mac and look at their drive database of all the drives that work with different Macs and OS X versions.

 

[gofferian]

Thank You

Cheers for all your help.

Sorted - have purchased an external drive.

Thanks

ian