Turn iMac DVD Drive into USB External Drive?

[alexk403]

So I have an old iMac G5 no isight that is no longer working but am making the switch soon to a macbook pro retina. although i will most likely never use it, I would like to convert the dvd drive from the imac i already extracted into a usb external drive (Like an apple external superdrive). How would I go about doing this? I am not sure what the plug it uses is called, maybe someone knows and can help me out. Thanks.

 

[flatfoot]

That DVD drive uses an IDE (a.k.a. PATA) connection.

Search google (or any other site) for "slim optical ide enclosure". Any should work.

 

[alexk403]

Thanks, but anyway I can do this without costing me anything? I am not cheap or anything, just think it would be a fun project. I have a lot of spare parts, xboxes, keyboards, old computers. I believe you can do it with an old hard drive enclosure as well. Thanks

 

[flatfoot]

The connector on the DVD drive should be the same as on a 2.5" IDE HDD, so it should work with an enclosure for said kind of HDD. But, of course, the enclosure itself will be too narrow to make it look neat.

 

[robgendreau]

You could probably cobble something together for the power. The issue is turning that IDE connection into USB. There are cables for this if you don't wanna go with enclosing it.