[G4] optical drive failure

[Steve Goldstein]

At 4:14 PM +0000 6/5/06, dapper dan wrote:
>3 questions:
>
>best place to buy a new cd/dvd drive?

several good places.  The one I keep going back to is newegg.com.  Fast, reliable, and either the lowest price around, or just a few dollars more than the lowest price.

>
>how difficult is it to install?

Very easy.  Just remember to remove the front plate so that it can fit in easily.  That's easy to do, also.

>good time to also swap out my hard drive for a bigger one?


Sure, but even easier to add a new and bigger one to what you already have.  Then, use CarbonCopyCloner to clone your existing HD to the new one, and set the new one as the Startup Disk with System Preferences.  Don't buy much more than 128 GB without getting a new controller, though, because the stock HD controller just sees 127 (or 128?) GB.  But, for example, there ought to be good buys on Samsumg 160 GB  ATA (IDE) HDs, so you could just install one of these and forgo the extra space over 128 GB.  I heartily recommend the Samsungs.  Quite, reliable, etc.

--Steve