New optical drive

[Phil Adams]

Hi folks. Could somebody advise me please?
I have a Mac Pro 3.1. The optical drive is dying.
I have bought one off eBay from a 5.1 thinking the connections would be universal and of course I’m wrong.
Is there an adapter available to go from my ribbon cable onto the later drive? And indeed is the drive actually compatible being later?
Many thanks,
Phil

 

[Amethyst1]

The MacPro3,1 uses PATA for optical drives.
The MacPro5,1 uses SATA for optical drives.

Here’s an adapter (MODS: NOT MY AUCTION!!!):

PATA IDE TO SATA Converter Adapter 7+15 Pin 3.5/2.5 DVD Plug&Play SATA HDD | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for PATA IDE TO SATA Converter Adapter 7+15 Pin 3.5/2.5 DVD Plug&Play SATA HDD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Phil Adams]

Thank you Amethyst1

 

[rampancy]

Not having a Mac Pro myself, I am curious: does the 5.25" optical drive bay in the Mac Pro have the clearance to allow the use of an IDE-SATA adapter?

 

[joevt]

Not having a Mac Pro myself, I am curious: does the 5.25" optical drive bay in the Mac Pro have the clearance to allow the use of an IDE-SATA adapter?

I think so. Remember, there's enough clearance for the pata cable and power cable. The adapter Amethyst linked only adds about a couple centimetres to the length of the optical drive, and optical drives come in different lengths.

I've given up on internal DVD drives. Just get one external USB enclosure. Then you can use it with any computer.
But I'm not sure if it's bootable or if it can install Windows from DVD (legacy BIOS Boot Camp).

Thank you Amethyst1

If you try an adapter, let us know how it works. Will you try booting Windows installer? CD Audio? DVD video? Reading? Writing?

 

[Project Alice]

The Mac Pro 3,1 has two additional SATA ports on the logicboard. You can stick the drive you already have in there with SATA.
You’ll need a Molex to SATA power adapter though.

 

[joevt]

The Mac Pro 3,1 has two additional SATA ports on the logicboard. You can stick the drive you already have in there with SATA.
You’ll need a Molex to SATA power adapter though.

Right. Those two SATA ports are for optical disk drives (ODD) but I use them for two SSDs.
Only problem is, the ODD ports don't work during legacy BIOS boot because the MacPro3,1 boots in IDE mode instead of AHCI mode in that case. In IDE mode, only the 4 SATA drive bays work and the 2 PATA connections.
There are ways to make legacy BIOS boot switch to SATA mode, (one method was to change the boot code in the MBR), but I don't know how you would do that for a ODD boot. People have made many EFI patches for the Mac (see RefindPlus and OpenCore) but haven't done much patching of the Boot Camp EFI program.

 

[EugW]

Not having a Mac Pro myself, I am curious: does the 5.25" optical drive bay in the Mac Pro have the clearance to allow the use of an IDE-SATA adapter?

Yes.

 

[Project Alice]

Right. Those two SATA ports are for optical disk drives (ODD) but I use them for two SSDs.
Only problem is, the ODD ports don't work during legacy BIOS boot because the MacPro3,1 boots in IDE mode instead of AHCI mode in that case. In IDE mode, only the 4 SATA drive bays work and the 2 PATA connections.
There are ways to make legacy BIOS boot switch to SATA mode, (one method was to change the boot code in the MBR), but I don't know how you would do that for a ODD boot. People have made many EFI patches for the Mac (see RefindPlus and OpenCore) but haven't done much patching of the Boot Camp EFI program.

This is a non issue unless OP plans on using bootcamp; and using it with optical discs.

Also, having actually got Windows 10 on AHCI mode on a 3,1 the 2 extra SATA ports were still invisible to Windows.