digitalFAQ.com Forum - PATA burner, pre-SATA optical drives for Mac computers?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeikobu

I noticed in some of the reviews for both drives I mentioned (the Pioneer and the Samsung) people saying "it's a great PATA burner" or "good drive for pre sata optical drive macs". Since my cord inside is IDE will these still work? I'm sure when I found these I was specifically searching for drives that work with IDE, so hopefully this isn't a problem. Other than that I'm still a little torn on which of the two drives is better. I'm seeing differing opinions on both. I assume either would theoretically fit inside my G4 where my old burner is?

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If you have a PATA (IDE) connection, you'll want to replace it with another IDE burner.

There are also some adapters available only, which allow SATA drives to be used in IDE computers, but those are intended for hard drives -- however optical drives can work. I've tried it in systems, and it worked successfully. But I've not tried in an old Mac G4. I'm surprised anybody still uses a decade-old G4 at this point in time!

The burner should fit, yes.

Amazon has a Pioneer 118 IDE: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B002GQ2SI8
Great drive, $39, free shipping.

Newegg appears to be completely out of stock on Pioneer IDE drives. So this is your best bet.
It's not like $40 is a horrible price anyway. Just a tad higher than the $25-30 range SATA drives (Samsung, Sony, Pioneer).

Hope that helps. :thumb: