iUseApple

Replacement Superdrive for G5 Recommendation

The original Superdrive in my 2003 PowerMac G5 stopped burning DVDs quite awhile ago. Roxio Toast Titanium always would fail to start a burn, often resulting in a Medium Write Error. OS X is usually good at describing what an error is, unlike Windows. Most people don’t know what a Medium Write Error is. To put it simply, it means something about the burn process is not working with either the Superdrive, the brand or type of CD/DVD, or OS X. There are different types of Medium Write Errors, often proceeded with an Error number. Google this number and you will find out what the particular error means. Once a Medium Write Error occurred frequently on a MacBook Pro, but I figured out it was something in my User Preferences causing the problem, because when I’d log in as another user, burning would work fine. Creating a new user fixed the problem (this won’t always fix a Medium Write Error). Sometimes my G5 would not burn onto a particular brand of DVD, causing a Medium Write Error. The Sony DW-U10A that came with my G5 always was particular.

The Freeware Application Burn, an excellent App for burning I might add, notified me that my faulty Superdrive would not calibrate the laser for burning a DVD-R. But it would burn CDs fine. There are actually two different lasers in a DVD-RW drive, one for reading and writing CD media and another for DVDs. So, off to purchase another Superdrive. But there were so many to choose from…

I Took a gander over at Other World Computing (OWC), an excellent Authorized Apple Reseller. They shipped me the drive 2-Day FedEx from Illinois, for a fantastic price, under $40! The price was so well under what I expected, that I decided to pick up another 1 GB of RAM for my G5 too… Third Party RAM is always something to look out for online. Certain brands are not compatible with a Mac, even if they have the same specifications you need. OWC has a great listing of all the RAM that is compatible with your specific Mac.

I ended up purchasing a Pioneer DVD-115DBK, it can burn DVD-Rs at 16x and CD-Rs at 56x or greater (I burned a 440MB CD-R in a minute and a half!), and even records on Dual Layer DVD-RW. Needless to say, it is a vast improvement over the Superdrive that came with the PowerMac G5 originally, and for the price of $34.95!

I had to carefully pry off the front door of the drive so it could clear the drive bay in the G5, instructions for this were included with the shipment from OWC. I also had a Service Manual for my G5 handy with instructions for replacing the SuperDrive.