Superdrives MacMini/PowerBook different models?

[Bug-Creator]

So someone asked wether I could provide him with a Superdrive for a MacMini G4 (most likely SilentUpgrade) so I duck around in my leftovers and found a SUPER 846CA and SUPER 825CA.

Hooked them up to the remains of a A1138 PB and both booted the Leopard disk to the point when it showed the background picture but got stuck there with no HD installed.

With a HD and the 846 the PB wouldn't recognize neither. With the 825 it would boot the HD but the DVD wouldn't show up.
In OF I was also unable to "eject cd" with only 825 (it would boot just fine) which does work for the 846.

Confused enough

These drives have been lying around for a while and actually there must be some more still.
Possible sources are:
That A1138, a A1139, some older 17" AluBooks and 2006 CoreDuo MacMini.

So, what specific drive should work in the A1138 and more important in G4 Mini?

 

[Doq]

It shouldn't matter.

Optical drives of this era are just bog standard IDE optical drives with an Apple logo on them. They even use a standard connector. Really these both should work without issue.

My suspicion is both of these are dead, but it could also be the A1138 itself or even the connecting cable.

 

[Amethyst1]

With a HD and the 846 the PB wouldn't recognize neither. With the 825 it would boot the HD but the DVD wouldn't show up.
In OF I was also unable to "eject cd" with only 825 (it would boot just fine) which does work for the 846.

Sounds like their PATA Master/Slave/CableSelect settings may be wrong. Try with both as CS; if that's not doing it repeat with the HDD as M and the DVD as S.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Master/Slave/CableSelect

That was my initial thought too but none of the drives have any visible jumpers and though I suspect that is something done on the motherboard.