I've got a quick question here. The combo drive on my 12" Powerbook G4 is starting to go out and I am looking to get a replacement. Does the 12" use a different drive than the 15" and 17" AlBooks? I know the TiBooks used a different one, but I was unsure about whether or not the drives among the 12"-17" models were swapable.
Anonymous
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I am pretty sure that they went with regular Slot-Load Optical drives at that point. You should just get a standard DVD-+RW and throw it in. Apple stopped making special mechanisms around the time of the 12" PowerBook. Mainly, since they had no way to put special mechanisms into a laptop that small, so what would be the point.
Maybe look on iFixit? That may help
Yeah, I could get an aftermarket drive, but I've had bad luck with non-Apple writers in Macs. I put a new superdrive in our eMac and trying to burn any sort of media is a PITA. Thats using Toast 8 or 9. I'll probably just get a used Apple drive on ebay assuming they are all the same.
A few weeks ago OWC was clearing them out via their Garage Sale page - hard to find a used one you'd trust to warrant the effort of using it as a replacement, they're the most delicate (and failure prone) of the Apple notebook drives in my experience.
Good Luck
In my humble opinion, Pioneer makes some of the best (durable, and close enough to leading edge) equipment. I put a Pioneer DVD burner in my G4 TiPowerbook, and it has been awesome.
Mutant_Pie
I put a Pioneer DVR-K05 in my TiBook too. But the 12" PBooks' opticals are such a time-consuming PITA to replace, I'd never put an unknown used drive in one, not worth it IMO.
dan k