Any suggestions to by pass wrecked DVD drive?

Ham'nd'egger

Problem. My Superdrive in my trusty old 1Ghz Powerbook is not working. Ok, says I, no bother as I don't burn stuff on it, I use my 1.7Ghz G5 iMac. But, what I can't do is either load up new music to iTunes on the Powerbook (I DJ and use it for music carrying and playback) or more crucially, I can't boot up new software on it like it's OS or the like.

Now before you say "new superdrive" it's looking about €800 just to replace it, not to mention potential loss of files. Which leads me to the idea of using the iMac as an external Drive to load up Mpegs et al onto the Powerbook. I really don't wish to buy an external DVD drive if I can help it (But would if it was easier), so how is it possible to hook up the notebook to the iMac in real time to load up on files and programmes and the like in relative ease?

NB Please note I said in real time, so don't suggest Firewire or Bluetooth please. I want to be able to hook cable in, and lug it out in double quick time. And ditto for a new iBook, the network issue still will remain regardless of Mac's I will own; as well an old Powerbook is more durable than any iBook.

Hugh_C

Hamndegger wrote:

Now before you say "new superdrive" it's looking about €800 just to replace it...

schnipp

Please note I said in real time, so don't suggest Firewire...

Uhhhhh, a new superdrive, looks like about US$200 before shipping, nowhere near EUR800. Self-install - dealer install is for girls.

Firewire mode is exceedingly quick for transferring data - I should know, I transferred a bunch of stuff (>3GB) in firewire mode in minutes between two PowerBooks. Check out firewire mode in your Help menu in the Finder.

Research young ham, research.

hc

mycroft

hughchal wrote:

Uhhhhh, a new superdrive, looks like about US$200 before shipping, nowhere near EUR800. Self-install - dealer install is for girls.

Firewire mode is exceedingly quick for transferring data - I should know, I transferred a bunch of stuff (>3GB) in firewire mode in minutes between two PowerBooks. Check out firewire mode in your Help menu in the Finder.

Research young ham, research.

hc

I concur I was doing the exact same thing earlier this afternoon, and transfered in the region of 2GBs in the time it took to make a cup of tea.

babypink

most definitely concur.... firewire mode is the way to go

Dr_Teeth

You can also use a cross-over cable between the ethernet ports of each machine, with some manual configuration of the IP addresses - though this is obviously more work than using Firewire.

You could also set-up an Ad-Hoc wireless network between the machines if they both have Airport cards - though this would be a lot slower than the other methods.

Teeth.

Ham'nd'egger

hughchal wrote:

Uhhhhh, a new superdrive, looks like about US$200 before shipping, nowhere near EUR800. Self-install - dealer install is for girls.

Firewire mode is exceedingly quick for transferring data - I should know, I transferred a bunch of stuff (>3GB) in firewire mode in minutes between two PowerBooks. Check out firewire mode in your Help menu in the Finder.

Research young ham, research.

hc

The reason why I played with €800 was a call to Mactivate reckoned that €650 ex Vat to fit one in (I was under the idea that they were hard fitted to the board for some bizzarre reason), so if anybody here can enlighten me as to how practical it is to fit a drive, this may be one way out of it. Hmmm, a fit and ready Powerbook and a G5 iMac.... Apple heaven :cool:

Mind you, I'm not sold on Firewire on this basis simply because I need to load and go where new music is concerned ASAP, brilliant and all as it is. I moved all my iTunes with it, all 27 Gigs and it did the job briliantly, I just need 2 minutes max late on Friday evening and I'm off, not logging off and on.

Dr. Teeth, explain that idea to be a bit please... sounds intrieging...

babypink

its not all that difficult to be honest, just takes a bit of patience and your trusty torx screwdriver. internal layout is pretty nice so shouldn't take too long....do a google search for powerbook disassembly and that'll do the trick.

over ethernet, turn on personal file sharing on one/two of the machines and connect the crossover cable - thats it. Note that the files you want to share have to be in your Public folder.

This came off the Apple KnowledgeBase

II. Start Sharing
1. Place files to share in your Public folder.
2. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu. See Note 1.
3. Click the Network icon.
4. Choose the port you are going to share on (Built-in Ethernet or AirPort) from the Show pop-up menu. See Note 2.
5. Click the AppleTalk tab.
6. Click the checkbox to select Make AppleTalk Active.
7. Click Apply Now.
8. Click the Show All button in the upper left corner of the window.
9. Click the Sharing icon.
10. In the Computer Name field, type the name you wish to appear on the network for your computer. See Note 3.
11. Click Start in the File Sharing section. For Mac OS X 10.2 and later, select Personal File Sharing.

Repeat this process on any other Mac OS X computer that you wish to receive File Sharing connections.

Notes:
1. Users sharing between remote locations skip steps 3 to 8. Users of dial-up must connect before step 11.
2. Prior to Mac OS X 10.1, the Show menu was named "Configure."
3. If you change your Computer Name in the future, you must stop and restart File Sharing for the name change to take effect.

Hugh_C

Hamndegger wrote:

The reason why I played with €800 was a call to Mactivate reckoned that €650 ex Vat to fit one in (I was under the idea that they were hard fitted to the board for some bizzarre reason), so if anybody here can enlighten me as to how practical it is to fit a drive, this may be one way out of it. Hmmm, a fit and ready Powerbook and a G5 iMac.... Apple heaven :cool:

Depends what model it is - titaniums are easier, aluminiums are harder - which do you have? There's a titanium walk through here. Mactivate are interested in making money like any other business, but in reality 200 bucks purchase plus fifty shipping plus 21 percent duty (?) is still a long way off 800, more like eur240 if my arithmetic is right.

With all due deference to teeth, the ad hoc wireless setup will be grindingly slow and the crossover ethernet (not even sure that modern network cards need a crossover cable) may not be as quick as firewire, especially if one side is only 100Mbit/s

Ham'nd'egger

hughchal wrote:

Depends what model it is - titaniums are easier, aluminiums are harder - which do you have? There's a titanium walk through here. Mactivate are interested in making money like any other business, but in reality 200 bucks purchase plus fifty shipping plus 21 percent duty (?) is still a long way off 800, more like eur240 if my arithmetic is right.

With all due deference to teeth, the ad hoc wireless setup will be grindingly slow and the crossover ethernet (not even sure that modern network cards need a crossover cable) may not be as quick as firewire, especially if one side is only 100Mbit/s

Gasp! My baby is an Titanium, your lucky she is in bed now, she would kill you if she heard you use the A word, Grrr!

Back on topic, I think Babypink may have the solution to my actual asked issue, but Hugh, you probably have cheaply got me my Superdrive sorted out. I can't really envisage using the Powerbook for much more than live work anymore so a quick fileswap solution will make me a happy Mac user. I'll get back you you all to let you know how I got on on both issues.

SouperComputer

Titaniums are dead easy to swap optical drives in!

Wibbs

hughchal wrote:

Mactivate are interested in making money like any other business, but in reality 200 bucks purchase plus fifty shipping plus 21 percent duty (?) is still a long way off 800, more like eur240 if my arithmetic is right.

Long way off isn't in it. It's not just them though. Most(if not all) Apple dealer repairs in this country run at twice the price of other EU Apple dealers. Some times more than that. There's a fair price and there's extracting the urine. That price is the latter.

I agree with everyone else, the titanium is a doddle to swap optical drives. 20 min job at most with practice. Be careful with the delicate ribbon cables though.

deevey

erm ... USB 2.0 or firewire DVD burner??

- believe maplin is doing em for about 120 at the mo ? cant remember if it will boot from firewire but i think it does. cheapie option and dual layer if you need it ..