I have a bronze-keyboard Powerbook G3/Pismo running system 9.04, with
two USB 1.1 (rev 1.4.2) and 2 Firewire ports (firmware Firewire
2.3.3). I believe the Firewire ports are 6-pin but am not 100% sure.
The internal CD/DVD ROM drive has been flakey of late. Resetting the
PRAM helped, and I have been able to copy files, but I wouldn't dare
reinstall or upgrade the system software with it. It spins up but then
doesn't maintain speed, and sometimes makes funny noises.
I want a bus-powered external CD-RW drive, preferably with DVD-ROM.
DVD-RW would be great but I don't expect to be able to get something
that will work with 9.04 for writing DVDs.
My questions are:
1. Can I use USB 2.0 bus-powered drives without an additional power
supply, or would that be a lost cause? Can I use cheap ones that are
not advertised as being Mac compatible, if only to read CDs and DVDs?
For example:
<http://tinyurl.com/2gsh7v> for a CD-ROM
or
<http://tinyurl.com/27nosh> for a CD-RW/DVD-ROM
What about Targus or Sony external slim CD/DVD drives?
2. Anyone know anything about the various LaCie drives, such as the
Pocket CD-RW (model # 300647), the d2 CD-RW (300566 and 300607), the
LaCie Slim Combo CD-RW Drive (Porsche) and the LaCie DVD±RW Drive
(300986 and 300987)? Often the downloadable datasheet will say
compatible with system 9.x, but the downloadable manual will say
requires 9.1. What will work? Any opinions on the drives themselves?
3. Any reason to use a PCMCIA card with either firewire or USB 2.0
ports? For example
<http://tinyurl.com/yv3ez2>
-It's advertised as only being Windows compatible, but should not a
PCMCIA card work for either Windows or Mac?
I worry about problems that have been reported with shorting of
Firewire 400 ports on older computers. Would this help? How about the
USB 2.0 ports?
4. I also want an external slim bus-powered hard drive, in the
40-160GB range. Any comments on the OWC On-the-go drives vs LaCie
pocket drives? The OWC drives have various mechanisms (Hitachi,
Toshiba, Seagate), any reason to prefer one over the other? I want
something really quiet.
Anyone have a good source for an external case for my internal
Powerbook HD, and a replacement internal HD? I remember reading of
some but forgot where.
That's all for now. Thanks in advance.
D
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