[P1] CD-RW on Clamshell

[Mark Kippert]

Paul Bernhardt on 12/16/03 11:43 AM wrote:

> I have a friend with a Clamshell iBook, Tangerine. So, it does not have
> Firewire. The question is: what is the best way to get a CDRW for him
> to make audio CDs via iTunes on it? I suspect that installing an
> internal drive CDRW that replaces the existing CDRom might be best. I
> also suspect that a USB (1.0) connected CDRW would be a bad idea.
> Comments, agreement with my assessment, other ideas?
> 
> Paul

I have a 500MHz iBook with the combo drive and it only burns at 4x speeds
which is about what you would expect from an external USB CD-RW. It's slow
but does the job. 

As such I would consider buying an external drive. The benefits being you
keep your original drive so there's no chance of problems should you need to
boot from CD (although there a probably several bootable internal drives you
can get). 

Even better is the ability to copy CDs. I make backups of all my original
software CDs as I have a tendency to misplace them. Making a disk image and
then burning a new disk from that image is so time consuming.

One other benefit is cost. An external unit is generally cheaper and taking
any iBook apart isn't for the faint-of-heart. So if you plan to have someone
install it for you plan on shelling out some bucks.

-Mark