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Takin’ it off…

Now that I have your attention…

I just wanted to pass along a little tip for people who want to replace the optical drive(s) in the following model Mac towers.

  • PowerMac G4 QuickSilver / QuickSilver 2002
  • Power Macintosh G4 “Mirrored Drive Door”
  • Power Macintosh G4 “FireWire 800”
  • Power Macintosh G5 (all models)
  • Mac Pro (all models)

For some reason, when designing these Macs, Apple decided to make the area the tray can fit through rather narrow. The problem with this decision, though, is that this slot is slightly smaller than the space required by the  tray of a standard optical drive as shipped by the manufacturer. In other words, a new optical drive – as shipped – won’t be able to open/close its tray.

Fortunately, the fix for this is pretty simple: remove the drive tray’s front bezel before installing the drive. There’s not a lot of documentation available from Apple regarding this, so instructions for how to do this are not only included with every internal 5.25″ optical drive we sell, but also can be found on our Web site.

M. Chris Stevens
the authorOWC Chris S.
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