Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Playing DVD's on a G3 iMac

T

TheChevver

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hey,
I have a iMac given to me that had an 80 gb hardrive put in and OSX 10.4 installed on it. As you will probably know it wont run DVD's on its drive, but i was wonderin if it would accept an external DVD drive. Would it be fine with it and run smoothly or would it be a waste of money?
Thanks TheChevver
 
Are you sure you don't have a dvd drive? If you are running 10.4 you have a firewire port; and if you have a firewire port then you have a dvd drive. Or did you use xpostfacto? If not Powerbook G4 slot drives should work.
 
You have to ask yourself whether you really need to run DVDs. I'm not quite sure what the rate is for externals right now but what would you want to do with it?

I also have an iMac G3 and if you are wondering how you can install certain programs without the DVD I don't think you really have to worry. There are ways around it.

I don't think you have a firewire in the 350 so that may also be a problem.
 
brop52.. you say there ar ways around it... what do you mean exactly??
I have a g3 snow 600 that I would lik to do some upgrades as well but I don't have the dvd drive either... I can pick up an external one for around 35 bucks but was wondering if that will work to load on OSX 10.4.?
Has anyone done this? if so let me know....
or do I have to buy an internal drive?
can I install osx on a hdd and then install the hdd into the iMac?
also I guess I can compress the file and burn to a cd than open it on the iMac....?

what is teh best ide here?
 
D ROCK said:
brop52.. you say there ar ways around it... what do you mean exactly??
I have a g3 snow 600 that I would lik to do some upgrades as well but I don't have the dvd drive either... I can pick up an external one for around 35 bucks but was wondering if that will work to load on OSX 10.4.?
Click to expand...
I can't be certain since I've never tried this before but I'm fairly sure the answer is yes
Has anyone done this? if so let me know....
or do I have to buy an internal drive?
Click to expand...
I don't think you have to buy an internal drive. If you do decide to go that route because of 'neatness', most laptop slot loading DVD drives should do the job. If you want a DVD-RW then you might want to research a bit more since I don't know if all of those work.
can I install osx on a hdd and then install the hdd into the iMac?
also I guess I can compress the file and burn to a cd than open it on the iMac....?
Click to expand...
If you have a firewire port on your mac then you can boot it up into target disk mode by holding down the T button, connecting it to another mac via firewire (although until Leopard, I don't think you can do this from an Intel mac due to so many different versions of Tiger) and then you can boot the host machine and install Tiger directly to the drive. You could also take the drive out and put it into a dvd capable machine and swap it back later.
what is teh best ide here?
Click to expand...
If you really want Tiger then the simplest way would be to get hold of Tiger in CD form. I belive if you call Apple up, they can swap your DVD for a set of four CDs which you can then use to install Tiger on your mac. I hope this helps! 🙂
 
I'm guessing you don't have one of the larger capacity ipods. If you did that would make installing Tiger much easier without an internal DVDR. If you have access to another computer/external HD then you could do it that way. If not, it's not going to be the easiest thing. Good luck to you!
 
actually I do have a 30 gig ipod....
would / could that do the trick?

did you get the private message I sent you????
 
D ROCK said:
actually I do have a 30 gig ipod....
would / could that do the trick?

did you get the private message I sent you????
Click to expand...

Ok well if you don't need anything on your ipod you can format it like an external HD. Make it into two partitions. One being the DVD for Tiger and the other being your HD files.

Next you'll need a mac comp that can read DVDs. Once you do that you'll need to make the DVD into a disc image. Once you do that you can restore the ipod with the disk image on the Tiger Install DVD partition.

Replace HD, Start up from Tiger Install Disk partition on iPod and you are ready to go.
 
some pics of the VGA cover.

this might help you with the VGA cover.....
I took these from my 600 mhz "snow"
 
how much would you need for it?

I have also been thinking lately that I might just get a used mini and try to mcgyver a screen into my imac then add the mini right inside.... that way I would still have an all in one but with a much faster mac. for almost the same money that it will take to upgrade this guy....
unless I can find some cheaper options..

I may just start with the RAM and the OS... then go for a larger HD....
but let me know the price on the used DVD drive?
does it work well?
why are you selling it?
 
shu82 said:
Are you sure you don't have a dvd drive? If you are running 10.4 you have a firewire port; and if you have a firewire port then you have a dvd drive. QUOTE]

The last of the G3 iMacs had firewire and only a CD-RW drive, no DVD support at all. 10.4 could be installed onto them using the media exchange program apple had available.
Click to expand...
 
strider42 said:
[

The last of the G3 iMacs had firewire and only a CD-RW drive, no DVD support at all. 10.4 could be installed onto them using the media exchange program apple had available.
Click to expand...

Or you could just use a firewire external hd in target mode and load up Tiger this is what I've done many a time.

Yes, the dvd/cd drive works fine. 22 bucks shipped to lower forty eight. Let me know. On the 350mhz iMac, i would recommend getting at least one 512mb ram stick to play your dvds, preferably two to max it out at 1gb. If you do this, I'd be interested to buy your old ram sticks. I keep this iMac stuff around because i have six or seven friends with G3 iMacs that I helped them get.
 
ve got two sticks of 128 mg ram... would you consider some sort of a trade???
what would the RAM be worth to you?
It s the original Apple RAM that came with my G4 400 tower. I also have the ( I believe) original RAM that shipped with this iMac 600. it is a single stick of 64 meg.

I can ship to and from Buffalo through my cousin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back