Type of PATA port on 2007 iMac optical drive

[gveter]

I have a 2007 iMac I’m trying to fix up by replacing the broken hard drive with an SSD and putting a new HD in place of the optical drive. My online readings led me to get this SATA-to-PATA caddy, but with everything installed, Disk Utility was “unable to write to last block of device”.

I’m trying to narrow down whether it’s the caddy or the port. My research tells me the iMac uses PATA for the optical drive, so I got this adapter to test the drive externally on a different machine. Sadly, the ports don’t match!

I’ve attached a photo of the port on the optical drive, which you can see looks nothing like this photo of a PATA port.

Does anyone know how I can connect the seemingly-eccentric iMac PATA port with the standard PATA port on the adapter?

 

[crsh1976]

I'd wait for a confirmation from another user, but that looks like an old "slim ATAPI" (or slim PATA) connector used in older notebooks rather than a desktop-bound PATA connector - since the iMacs used slim 2.5-inch optical drives usually found in notebooks, that'd explain why you're having trouble matching the two variants of PATA connectors.

 

[gveter]

Yes, that makes sense. Slim ATAPI seems like the correct name!

Your post somehow made me remember that I have an enclosure for a SuperDrive, from when I replaced a MacBook Pro optical drive with an SSD. I just tried the SATA-to-PATA caddy with that enclosure and it worked! So that tells me the problem is not with the caddy, but with the iMac somehow.

Unfortunately, in my repeated openings of the iMac, I’ve rendered it unbootable, so I’ll have to start another thread about that.

Thanks for your response!