G4 Cube DVDRW drive

[Mikeyy00]

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a way to mount a standard IDE laptop DVD (slot load) drive into a Cube? It seems the Cube and the slot-load iMac G3 use a drive that's quite a bit physically larger than your typical laptop slot load drive.

I see some old mentions about a guy at Cube Owner who 3D printed a bracket.. but those links all seem to be dead, and I can't find a way to contact him.

MCE still sells a SuperDrive.. but it's like $99, where I can find a iMac G5 slot load drive for closer to $20. If anyone knows an easy way to mount a standard drive, I'd appreciate some tips.

Thanks!

 

[Franklinstein]

The early PBG4s used that same drive, but I think they were all Matsushita units where the Cube and iMac mostly used LG units. Either way they were huge and not terribly reliable, and with the rubber on the loading rollers and drive belts dried out after so many years, they tend to be unusable. I don't bother with the internal drive in my Cubes; I just use an external FW DVDRW that's faster and easier to use than any of the slot-loaders I've come across.

MCE sells the mounting bracket that you would need included in the $99 kit, whereas the $69 kit assumes you already have the mounting bracket. The bracket is pretty simple, just some stamped sheet metal. Other people have apparently gutted the old drive and mounted the new one in its case (like on this tonymacx86 thread.) Otherwise try using the Wayback Machine with Cube Owner to see if you can recover the pages relevant to 3D printing a bracket (though I'd imagine this would be the most labor-intensive option).

 

[waynestewart]

I replaced the optical drive in my cube with one from a slot loading iMac. There's a little adapter circuitboard that plugged into the back of the cube drive that I moved over to the iMac drive. Like Franklinstein I mostly used an external.

 

[Mikeyy00]

Yeah, I'm leaning towards external Firewire. Really no downside going that way, and it seems like you can find new-old stock on fleabay for well under $100.. not to mention, non-slot load drives are faster.

 

[Mikeyy00]

Oi! Incoming story, but I feel like sharing.

I'll put some pictures up a little later.. but I decided to go with an internal drive vs. Firewire.

So, since an adapter seems to be impossible to find, I basically pulled the stock DVD drive out.. gutted all the components out from it, hammered it flat (since there's some ridges inside to hold some of the components. Next I dremeled the *hit out of the remainder, and chopped off as much as I could (half of the back, the front lip, the back lip, bit still leaving most of the left and right sides intact.. so I'd be able to screw it back into the cube using all four screws.

With me so far? 

Next, I double-sided-taped an eBay slot load combo drive in the carcass of the stock DVD drive. Sounds ghetto, and it is really.. but this sucker isn't moving anywhere. 

Last you have to source a Notebook IDE to desktop IDE adapter. The stock one can't be re-used. I did attach a picture of that.

Installed it all, and nothing. No boot, no boot selection, no booting from CD. Tried messing with the jumpers on the hard drive, but no combo would allow anything to boot. Unplug DVD drive, and it boots. Hmm.

Here's the rub using that adapter (and it was the only one I could find on eBay). It's hard-coded as "Cable Select". So, it doesn't work in the Cube (or really, most Macs). Crap right? Well, digging around in some older PC forums, someone mentioned that if IDE pin 28 is grounded, the drive will default to "Master". Luckily the pins to the left and the right of that pin on the IDE plug on that adapter are ground.. so I just did a little solder bridge.

Tossed everything back into the cube, and Voila! she boots, and the new Combo drive works like a champ. 

Maybe this was a known thing, but whatever.. I hope the story helps someone in the future, and I'll get around to posting pictures eventually.

 

[trag]

I posted within the last month in a different DVD drive thread where to find PATA to slim drive adapters with Master and Slave jumpers.   It's around here somewhere.  Most of them don't have them, so it takes some hunting, which I've already done, for other folks' convenience.   Ah, here it is:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/56364-recommend-a-cddvd-burner-to-me-g4-yikes/&do=findComment&comment=599629

Your solution is more down and dirty with the hardware.   I like it.  

 

[CC_333]

This is a very nice solution.

I may actually give this a try at some point, as I have a whole fleet of Slot Load iMacs (and a Cube, which incidentally uses the same mechanism as the iMacs) whose rubber belts were going bad... four years ago.

They're probably all junk by now.

I think I've finally come up with a good use for a stack of otherwise worthless Combo drives I've scavenged out of various laptops!

c

 

[pb3623]

I've been boiling the belts in the two Cube drives I have, just to buy some time before they either break or stretch back out.

Pictures would be appreciated. I bought what I thought was a Cube DVD-RW drive but the listing was wrong and it's a slot loader for a 2011 iMac. Would like to attempt a transplant since it's basically free to me (if I can use it, I won't claim the refund!)

 

[Mikeyy00]

I've been boiling the belts in the two Cube drives I have, just to buy some time before they either break or stretch back out.

Pictures would be appreciated. I bought what I thought was a Cube DVD-RW drive but the listing was wrong and it's a slot loader for a 2011 iMac. Would like to attempt a transplant since it's basically free to me (if I can use it, I won't claim the refund!)

I'm going to be tearing my Cube apart again when the VRM cable I ordered comes in.. (so I'll post pictures of the dvd drive then)

Gist is though, you can use any IDE Slot load drive.. provided you have that eBay linked adapter from above, and have some really good two sided tape (command strips would work in a jam). Oh and a dremel too.

 

[Mikeyy00]

As promised.. here's some pictures.

I marked up a similar DVD with a sharpie so you could get an idea of what I did on the other drive. Dremel away as much as you can, but be sure to keep the four mounting holes intact.

It's not pretty, but that bastard isn't moving with the combo of doublesided foam tape and command strips.

I've also included where I had to bridge the IDE pins on the adapter.