Need advice on Ext USB CD Burner for iMac 333mhz OS X Panther

I would highly recommend A liteon cd burner as they seem to be the most compatable with any verison of X that I have run and they are relitively inexpenseve and a good value for the price. I have run a Liteon combo drive for three years in various macs. From a 400mhz Sawtooth to a QS 733 with never a problem or any issue.

It recognized as a CD- Burner by the OS. Although I us Dragon Burn for all my Cd-Burning weather it be for music files or Data Cds.

I would get a pioneer superdrive from OWC at $29.99
they also have a USB cable/power supply set at $9.99
Then you could burn and watch DVDs as well.

Dave

I'm sure you know this, but.. remeber that an original iMac isn't going to be able to burn CDs at more then about 4x. USB 1.1 really isn't up to the job.

You *could* install a laptop CD-RW drive in place of the internal drive. Going that route would allow you to burn faster. Wegener Media sells an internal 8x drive for an absolutely ridiculous price, but you can do *much* better. If the drive isn't recognized immediately as a burner by OS X you should be able to use PatchBurn to get it running.

--Peace

About any brand will work with your iMac using Patchburn.

LaCie is one of the best brands and are Mac friendly but will cost more than your iMac is worth. You can always use it with any other computer you get in the future though.

Check the Patchburn site for more info on what is compatible.

http://patchburn.de/download.html

Pretty much any USB drive ought to do the trick. Other sources - I've bought tons of stuff from OWC, but also from newegg and zipzoomfly.

I've never had much respect for Memorex products, but that's just cause I've never had anything but junk from them.

Keep in mind that trayload iMacs aren't going to able to burn a CD faster than roughly 4x on the external USB ports. That's why an internal drive is a much better solution, slim laptop drives can burn at waaay faster speeds. Pretty much any modern slim CD-R/W drive can burn at 24x, here's an example of a combo DVD/CDR/W drive for about $50. You really can't watch DVD movies on a trayload iMac (well, not to my satisfaction, anyhow) but it's still nice to be able to read DVD data disks (eg: Tiger installer.)

dan k

I would still buy the Superdrive at OWC, and mount the drive in a USB enclosure.

I like the internal suggestion except wouldn't I have a heck of a time trying to find a laptop drive that would fit etc.? Are the connectors the same and in the same orientation?

Most laptop CD-ROM drives of about the iMac's vintage (1998-ish) or newer should work. Some *old* drives had a different connector on them, but they're pretty rare. (Last one I saw like that was out of an old Thinkpad. A *really old* Thinkpad.). About the biggest problem you're likely to encounter is finding that a given replacement drive doesn't have screw holes which match up with those on the adapter board Apple uses to convert to the larger ribbon cable.

(The form factor has been *pretty* stable, but the exact shape of the casing does vary. The screw holes used to actually mount the drives in the case and the position of the electrical connector are consistent, however.)

I've successfully tried a slot-loading Combo drive out of a broken Titanium in my 233Mhz Rev. B. without any problems, so the theory of just throwing anything into it is sound. You *might* not be able to boot with a generic replacement, however.

--Peace

You're looking for one to give as a present? Then a used one in no good? If a used one is ok, USB 1.1 external CD burners are easy to pick up on eBay for very cheap. I've got a Sony Expressa which is not X compatible, but works fine in OS 9. When I was watching auctions for an external Que! DVD drive a couple months ago, I was just doing an eBay search for "Que!" and I noticed a lot of Que! USB 1.1 external drives which ended up selling, if they did sell at all, for about $5. The Que! drives I've owned have all been Mac bootable when installed in Mac towers. That's the cheap way to go, but you might want to go with a USB 2 drive so it has a future.

if you can get a hold of an iomega Zip 650 CD-RW, it will do 4x4x6 (or 8x for read, i forgot) they are compatible with both OS 9 AND OS X, definately worth the money. When i bought mine for my Clamshell I had, it was pretty nice. I still use it, because it recovers data from heavily scratched CDs very easily. I still have it, and would NEVER give it up. It's just that nice of a drive...

If you can find one of those, I would recommend that one. The drive also does 700MB discs as well, and has a tray system. You can recognize them as a built-together package (it's not just a desktop drive in a case) and is a totally purple and grey unit.

I highly recommend those.

About any brand will work with your iMac using Patchburn.

LaCie is one of the best brands and are Mac friendly but will cost more than your iMac is worth. You can always use it with any other computer you get in the future though.

Check the Patchburn site for more info on what is compatible.

http://patchburn.de/download.html

What you wrote above doesn't sound like your referring to an INTERNAL laptop drive hack like Wegener Media sells. That was what I was asking.

and for any new readers, what I am looking for is an external cd burner for my iMac 333mhz tray loader. It is a gift so I am trying to find "new in the box".

I have seen Memorex and Iomega today at the retail stores. Would OS X recognize the Memorex? Is the IOMEGA a piece of crap?

Thanks

Patchburn doesn't care if the drive is internal or external. I have a Sony Dual Layer DVD-R (ext) that works fine with Patchburn on any Mac I have tried it on.

Personally I would avoid both Memorex and Iomega and stick to a higher-end brand, But it depends on your budget.