corradoboy

My ancient G3 PB has been getting more troublesome playing DVD's recently and tonight I discovered a split in the ribbon between the drive mechanism and casing. Can this be fixed cost effectively or should I write it off and rely on an external until I upgrade my Mac after Leopard ?? I have found a US site selling the same drive (LG DRN8080B) for $200, but is it worth it ??

It's a shame as the machine was to be retired as a work DVD player after my upgrade, and now it can't do that too well

Markus

Have a look on eBay, see if there are any cheap G3 PB's going for around $200, perhaps ones with broken screens but the rest of the hardware is ok, then you could swap out the drive.

You might also want to have a look here (go to the main site to use a wizard to select your exact model of PB). Might also be worth looking here as well.

corradoboy

Fantastic advice as ever

So, I currently have a foobarred CD/DVD read only drive. What is to stop me fitting THIS combo drive or even a Superdrive as a direct replacement ? It looks like they utilise the existing housing, but does that include the ribbon

Please say I can

RichB

I bought an external DVD writer for my Macs for £40 from Dabs...
I have two of those PB G3's and both would struggle with disks, especially DVD/CDRs...

RichB

And those PBs are really pushing it to run Tiger so would imagine Leopard wont work.

corradoboy

My plans for Leopard lie in a new Mac, whether Imac, Mini or another lappy. I haven't even bothered with Tiger and am still running Panther.

When the machine retires it will become a plaything for watching DVD's at w*rk and general mobile duties relating to picture/video, hence my desire to retain its single box status by effecting a repair if possible or even an upgrade to give it burning capabilities which it has never had.

With rumours of the Mini up for the chop I am tempted to get one of those to use as a media centre for now

Markus

I'd email those chappies and ask them for the definite answer. It does state for the G4 lappys that you'd need the ribbon, but it does not state that for the G3's.

corradoboy

Already did

corradoboy

Update.

Got a drive from iFixIt and it turned out to be a Mat$h!ta, and they cannot be firmware flashed to RPC1. Sent it back and spoke to a local PC [gag] company who could sell me an Optiarc (NEC/Sony) superdrive for just £30. Their eyes glazed over when I mentioned firmware flashing but they said they'd put their top guy on it the next day. 3 weeks later after hearing nothing from them I called in. they hadn't managed to source a modified firmware patch, but I had. I pointed them in the right direction and yesterday they presented me with a fully functioning CD/DVD RW multiregion capable superdrive

Now, for my next trick, I shall make a Mac Mini C2D with multiregion, 2gb and TV recording