Le Hack: CDRW into Fruity iBook Does Go


This really belongs in the 'Fascinating-but-why-did-he-bother?' Department.

Fearless MacBidouille hardware guy Denis (surname supplied, but withheld for security reasons) has installed a CDRW into an original Blueberry iBook 300.

Enterprising Denis found that fruity iBooks sported a humble Matsushita CD-ROM, but that the Matsushita UJDA-330 (frequently found at this ebay store), swapped into the iBook with no ill effects.

There are some caveats: a partial (although seemingly not difficult) disassembly of your iBook is required. Some care needs to be exercised when swapping the bare 330 drive into the original drive sled as well.

MacBidouille has published a tutorial with photos. In French, but it's pretty easy to work out what's what.

The 330 is also compatible with Lombard/Pismo and is, if memory serves, an 8x4 burner. Its more expensive big brother, the UJDA-710, also fits the Bronze PowerBook G3s, but is 8x8 (IIRC) and is a Combo drive, meaning it'll do DVD on Lombard 400s and all Pismos. All of these drives are compatible with iTunes and Disc Burner (and Toast, obviously).

In my book, it's a mod better carried out on the vastly-superior FireWire iBooks (366-466MHz). You can figure on getting a UJDA-330 on ebay for around $85 bare.

Surprise someone for Xmas by taking their iBook apart. Their challenge on December 25 is to figure out how to put it back together again.