Macworld: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or ...

Subscribe to magazine

Print

Up to Discussions in Desktop Macs

14 Replies Last post: Sep 5, 2005 7:07 PM by macnuke

Aran_Crowe

124 posts since
Dec 17, 2002

Reply

Sep 3, 2005 11:57 PM

PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial ATA?

I know the PowerMacs have long since switched away from the ATAPI/IDE/ATA/whateveryouwannacallit interface as far as hard drives are concerned... But do they still use a standard ATA interface for the Combo and Super Drives?

The reason I'm asking is, I have a DP 2.7 G5 arriving from Apple this week, which I downgraded to a Combo drive... and I just purchased a LaCie DVD+/-RW DL dvd writer with LightScribe (the only internal drive available with LightScribe labelling software for Mac) to install in it right away, hence the Combo Drive downgrade. (for those of you who don't know what LightScribe is, it doesn't have anything to do with my question, but it's really really cool. http://www.lightscribe.com/)
Anyways, I'm wondering if I just wasted $140 on a drive that won't go in my machine. If someone could either reassure me, or let me know how foolish of a purchase that was, that would be great.

Thanks,

-Aran

Reply

macnuke

6,672 posts since
Mar 5, 2004

1. Sep 4, 2005 1:18 AM

in response to: Aran_Crowe

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial ATA?

dunno if you wasted your bucks..
but I do know the powermacs use the same interface for the optical drive as they always have.
it's not SATA (serial) like the hard drives.

m

Reply

Aran_Crowe

124 posts since
Dec 17, 2002

2. Sep 4, 2005 8:40 AM

in response to: macnuke

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

Well, Pre-G3 Powermacs used ATA (or IDE or ATAPI or whatever), G3 PowerMacs used ATA, and G4 PowerMacs used ATA... So it's the same then? Well, that's a relief.

Thanks,
-Aran

Reply

macnuke

6,672 posts since
Mar 5, 2004

3. Sep 4, 2005 10:44 AM

in response to: Aran_Crowe

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

it's the same.
MacCheetah3 had a thread on a bummed out hard drive from an older mac and he pulled his optical from his G5 Powermac so he could hook up the older style HD thru that connection.
he also had a successful outcome with his nightmarish problem.
when I needed to move alot of data fast from my old HD's, i pulled my optical as well and plugged them into the ATA in my G5 DP. much faster for about 85Gigs of "stuff"

Reply

Aran_Crowe

124 posts since
Dec 17, 2002

4. Sep 4, 2005 11:25 AM

in response to: macnuke

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

Well, I have a big ATA HD in my current machine, and I'd like to copy a lot of stuff off of it over to my new G5, once it arrives. I'm avoiding the Firewire Migration Assistant for the sake of speed (I might use it for my user account, or I might just start a new one from scratch), so I was planning on plugging my current HD into the G5 by moving my Sonnet Tempo ATA/100 PCI card into my G5 and hooking the HD up that way... But do you think it would be faster to plug it in to the optical drive's hookups, especially since I'm removing the optical drive anyways?

Thanks,

-Aran

Reply

macnuke

6,672 posts since
Mar 5, 2004

5. Sep 4, 2005 11:39 AM

in response to: Aran_Crowe

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

two things come to mind.
1) yes it's faster than firewire migration assist.
2) one day you will really want that internal optical.. so don't count it out. when all else fails on your mac (rare but it happens) the internal optical can save your bacon.

Reply

Aran_Crowe

124 posts since
Dec 17, 2002

6. Sep 4, 2005 12:05 PM

in response to: macnuke

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

I'm not taking th Combo Drive out and leaving the bay empty... I'm replacing it with a LaCie Dual-Layer DVD writer with LightScribe labelling technology (very cool stuff). That's the reason I downgraded from the SuperDrive Dual-Layer drive... to replace it with the LaCie.

What I was saying was, I need to copy some files off of my G4's HD before I get rid of it, and FireWire's too slow for me... I have like 90 GB worth of files to copy. So while I have the Combo Drive out, I could easily plug my HD in for an hour or two while I copy everything over to my new HD, and then unplug the old HD and plug the LaCie drive in and close everything up...

That should work, right?

Thanks,
-Aran

Reply

macnuke

6,672 posts since
Mar 5, 2004

7. Sep 4, 2005 12:12 PM

in response to: Aran_Crowe

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

yup. it should.
lightscribe was rare when I bought my G5.
at least i was able to reflash my optical ROM to dual layer and higher speeds of the 108.
not as good as lightscribe, but not to shabby either.

m

Reply

doggdamac

1,402 posts since
Jul 22, 2001

8. Sep 4, 2005 6:44 PM

in response to: Aran_Crowe

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

There ARE SATA optical drives available, I saw one a few months ago at a local geek shop. It was a bare-bones/white box superdrive combo unit made by Plextor for ~$60 or so....

I was kind of surprised, since I didn't really think optical drives would benefit much from using the serial ATA interface, unless of course, they were used for massive direct disc-to-disc dvd burning.....

So it may indeed warrant a double check/verification on the interface type before purchase

Reply

gabriel1425

86 posts since
Aug 3, 2001

9. Sep 5, 2005 9:51 AM

in response to: macnuke

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

Aran_Crowe sorry to jump on your thread and add another question but macnuke said something that caught my attention. macnuke you metioned flashing the memeroy in your DVD-RW, so I started researching it and after a few minutes of sifting through some hits I found something. Basically, from what I understand, our system profiler tells us that we have a Pioneer DVR-117D, but in reality it's a DVR-108 with custom firmware. If we flash with the firmware update of the DVR-108. I'm curious as to what are some of the side effects. I read some had problems with iApps, but were able to attain 16x DVD-R burning and DL burning.

Thanks.

Reply

gabriel1425

86 posts since
Aug 3, 2001

10. Sep 5, 2005 11:07 AM

in response to: gabriel1425

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

Just so I don't waste anybody's time I did a lot more searching and found plenty of posts on this including an article published by macworld itself.

Macworld Article

Accelerate Your Mac

Reply

Aran_Crowe

124 posts since
Dec 17, 2002

11. Sep 5, 2005 11:49 AM

in response to: gabriel1425

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

95% of issues with iApps can be fixed with this nifty little app...

http://www.patchburn.de/

PatchBurn is a freeware app that adds a "profile" for whatever cd or dvd writer you have in your machine, and basically makes iApps think that it's a stock Apple-installed unit. I did that with my current HP 640vi DVD writer... along with a few others. It's quite useful - just make sure you don't download version 4 if you're using anything before 10.4.

-Aran

Reply

gabriel1425

86 posts since
Aug 3, 2001

12. Sep 5, 2005 1:13 PM

in response to: Aran_Crowe

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

Luckily the Pioneer DVR-108 is recognized by 10.4, so I didn't have to worry about using PatchBurn. Thanks though.

Reply

macnuke

6,672 posts since
Mar 5, 2004

13. Sep 5, 2005 6:59 PM

in response to: gabriel1425

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

Hi gabriel

other than getting the full use of my CD/DVD as a DVR 108, no side effects.
just be sure if you flash it, you don't have a power interrupt during the flash. that will turn your DVD into so much garbage.
mine and a few others have done the flash and all is well.

m

btw.. if you want to flash yours.. a copy of the flash kit is right HERE

Reply

macnuke

6,672 posts since
Mar 5, 2004

14. Sep 5, 2005 7:07 PM

in response to: gabriel1425

Re: PowerMac G5 Optical Drives... ATA or Serial AT

btw
it's late, I have been helping the displaced. God help em. (yes, I live in Louisiana)
I replied to about three posts this eve and no telling how many problems were cured while i was out, then got the email when I got home and went straight to the post and missed the umpteen in between the reply to me and when i finally hit the boards...

teach me not to hit the flat button eh.

take care.. good night

m

Reply

Go to original post