Just a quick sanity check into the hypothetical - Let's talk about the Rev A imac and its IDE busses.
I already know that i can put a double headed IDE cable on Bus1 and a Y on the hard drive power connector and run a second hard drive. With the exception of it being disembodied from the case, it works great. but has anyone ever done something similar to Bus0 (the 50 pin bus for the CD)?
What I am wondering is this:
I have a CD-RW that has a jumper setting for slave/master installed - could I tack the original drive (as master) and this drive (as slave) and get both running? I see know reason why i could not, but I do wonder about the particulars since this is a 50pin drive and not vanilla 40 like the main hard drive.
If anyone has ever stuck two drives on a bus like this, or know something I should here, please chime in (that means you too dr.bob).
TIA
--ddtm
Scan down until you see the section about converting the CD-ROM IDE bus to a "normal" connector.
If you want to keep using the original laptop format drive in addition to a desktop-size drive then you're get creative with cabling and adapters. (If you adapt the port as described in that article then the original 50 pin cable is useless, as is the adapter board screwed onto the original drive. You could strip off the adapter board and replace it with a "standard" 40 pin-to-laptop adapter board, which are readily available.)
Honestly it seems sort of pointless to have both the original drive *and* a CD-RW, but whatever floats your boat.
--Peace
P.S. I know this is me being nasty and opinionated and all, but.. Reviving dead Rev A-D iMacs is just "so 2002" at this point. Are you sure you want to waste the time and money on it? If you *really* want a slow, unreliable, and totally obsolete G3 doorstop you should be able to find a Beige G3 for less then a custom-sized ATX power supply and a pile of oddball IDE cables will cost you.
Not nasty at all, I just love that machine and I already have a beige G3(8600) with a G3-500MHz card. I hope to pick up a Tempo Trio for this bad boy.