Changing the DVD Drive on a Mac

Has anyone done this? I’m replacing the original drive on a PowerPC G5 and the new drive – a Panasonic DVR-116D – seems to work perfectly except that the drawer doesn’t fit through the aperture on the front of the Mac’s case.

The 2 options would be to remove the silver flippy door on the mac, or somehow remove the plastic on the front of the drive’s drawer. Does anyone know which is best and how to do this?

Ta
Snigle
:o)

Annoying feature of the aluminium enclosure. The aperture just isn’t large enough, for some drives.

There is probably a clip-on plastic bit on the front of the tray. Hopefully, this should come off, and then the drive tray will be able to pass freely through the aperture.

I tried a Lite-On drive once, in my Mac Pro (similar case), and found the tray was 1mm to low, to clear the aperture edge. Very annoying. The Panasonic drive I replaced it with, was fine, after I’d removed the plastic tray front.

The G5/Mac Pro drive bay door is designed to work with drives with the clip on tray front removed. but it is a design flaw, I have to say.

HTH.

Remove the plastic lip on the front of the tray and it should be ok. Occasionally the screws that secure the drive inside the unit don’t go in far enough and the tray still rubs.

I’ve fathomed it. I powered up, opened the drawer of the DVD drive (with it not in situ) then unplugged it. The front fascia of the Panasonic drive unclips with bit of fiddling. It means it doesn’t have the benefit of the dust seal, but I’ve looked at the old one and that doesn’t either.

The drive is at the right height though, I just swapped the bump-stops over and it’s bang on. Thanks for taking the time to reply RudeBoy and Sandwich.

snigle
:o)