None-apple optical drive

[jamie marchant]

Can you put any optical drive in a Power Mac G4(I have the 'Yikes' model) or does it have to be one specifically for a Mac? 

 

[Macdrone]

depends on the OS but most drives are plug and play.

 

[Byrd]

Some are picky with booting from optical media, ideally I'd try to get a Pioneer drive

 

[jamie marchant]

Well I run on OS 9 on this machine but I want boot Linux and a 8.6 Nartorn disk I have. Is there a list of what DVD-ROMs work with the machine.

 

[Unknown_K]

You will have issues with DVD burners and Apples software plus DVD playback when using 3rd party drives. At least in the OS 9 and older era. Toast will pretty much use anything.

 

[jamie marchant]

Uh I see, those aren't 'show stoppers' for me but I think I'll keep my Apple 'approved' DVD-ROM in case other programs might have a problem as well. The issue I have with it is, it can't read certurn burnt disks.(DVD-R's are one of them.) I can use my Mac Mini's DVD-ROM over Firewire but the Yikes can't boot from FireWire.

 

[Gorgonops]

You will have issues with DVD burners and Apples software plus DVD playback when using 3rd party drives. At least in the OS 9 and older era. Toast will pretty much use anything.

Did Apple restrict it OS 9 software to their DVD drives and burners? I know they did in OS X, the cure for that is Patchburn.

I had a generic DVD burner in my G4-upgraded B&W G3 (functionally the same as a Yikes) and Patchburn worked to allow iTunes to burn DVDs, etc, but honestly I think the machine has spent all of an hour booted into OS 9 in the time I've had it so whatever limitations there might be on that side of the fence are a mystery to me. The machine does *boot* just fine from the third party drive, if that's your main worry.

 

[Unknown_K]

By DVD playback I meant movies using Apples built in software.

 

[Gorgonops]

Sure. I guess I'm just thinking I vaguely recall that under OS X at least the Apple DVD player would work okay with the third party drives, it was only the burning function that was gimped. But, again, NOOO idea about 9.