imac g4: replace optical drive with hard drive?

[space ace]

hi,

 

do you think it's possible to remove the optical drive from an imac g4 and put a second hard drive in its place? what are the obstacles, if any?

 

thanks

[zapro]

hi,

 

do you think it's possible to remove the optical drive from an imac g4 and put a second hard drive in its place? what are the obstacles, if any?

 

thanks

 

Yep no problem.

 

It's a standard ATA-interface, so you can attach an ATA Harddrive. if i remember right, the machine is a bit special, in the way that it only supports ONE disk on that channel.

 

Just remember it's only ATA33, not ATA66 as the intended channel for the disk, so you won't have much speed.

 

// Per.

[sarahbau]

The biggest obstacle would be not having an optical drive. lol. Other than that, it shouldn't be too hard. Just be prepared to spend a lot of time unscrewing the very long screws that hold the bottom on, unless you have an electric screwdriver with torx bits. It would also be a good idea to get some thermal grease for when you put it back together. You'll be able to see where to put it where the original thermal stuff is (black, rubbery gunk).

[OOSSXX8866]

I too can confirm it can be done. My old G4 MDD has 6 hard disks in it and no DVD. Its my file server in the basement! Cooling may be a challenge tho....

[Batum Schrag]

I just did this in my eMac G4 1.25. Pulled the optical drive and replaced it with a second internal hard drive. (Using it for digital audio recording. High sample rates made fastest possible disk I/O desirable.)

 

Had to get a mounting adaptor ($8) to secure the 3.5" drive into the 5.25" bay. Was actually a very easy procedure -- simpler than replacing the hard drive in the eMac.

 

Connection to the IDE bus was straightforward. The computer recognized the drive, and I formatted it on boot up. Works great.

 

 

Of course, should I ever need to resinstall OSX from the installation DVD, I'd either have to put the optical drive back in, or use my other Mac and Firewire Target Disk Mode. (Which hopefully won't ever be necessary.)

[fernblatt]

I'll add a "yep, it works"

 

I did it to both my G4 "mirror door" and my olde G3 B&W. Those that want to try it with the G3 Blue and White, be advised that a number of motherboards (oops *logic boards*[rolls eyes]) for that machine shipped with a flaky IDE controller and you may or may not have problems. I had no problem with either, though both machines are long gone and I have no further details to add.