Installation guide for Superdrive in your Power Macintosh G4 AGP

Begin by opening your system and touching a metal component such as the CD-ROM bay to ground yourself. Always be aware of static while working in your system, you can use a grounding wrist strap if you wish.

Reach in and gently remove the power and IDE cables from the back of your existing CD drive (and, if installed, your ZIP drive, not pictured). Lay them forward, out of the way, as shown.

Look at the front of the computer and you will see 2 plastic tabs poking through the front of the case into the CD bay area. You will need to gently press these tabs toward the CD carrier to release them, and the double drive door will slide forward in it’s mount as shown here. Remove the door from it’s tabs on the opposite side.

Look at the front of the computer where you removed the drive bay doors and you will see two phillips screws securing the bay into the computer chassis. Remove these two screws and set them aside.

Once the two screws are removed, the CD drive bay will slide forward in it’s track mount out of the computer. Remove it now, you may have to gently wiggle it up and down to free it from the bay because at the rear is a sheet metal endcap - it may get caught coming through the opening.

Remove the 4 screws shown here from the bottom of the CD drive carrier and you’re ready to remove the old CD drive.

Slide the old CD drive from the CD-ROM housing out the front.

Set the old drive on top of the new drive (in this case, a DVD-R mechanism) and you’ll see that in many cases, you will need to adjust the backpanel on the CD Drive carrier for depth.

Remove the sheet metal end cap from the CD-ROM tray by lifting on the metal tabs circled on the endcap. You’ll want to reinstall the endcap out to either the last set of holes, or the 2nd from last set. Once you install the new drive, you’ll see where to place it.

In this picture you can see how far the new DVD-R drive protrudes out from the drive carrier. The original drive fit flush, no protrusion at all. In this case, the 2nd from last set of holes will be used to replace the endcap. Also, once the drive is inserted, attach it to the carrier using the 4 screws you removed from the original drive (2 shown here).

One more picture showing the 2 tabs attached in the proper position for the DVD-R mechanism install.

Slide the completed assembly back into the chassis as you removed it. Note the two red circles here, that is the “ear” that has to slide through the circled opening upon completion, it’s there as a guide. Reinsert the power and IDE cables as you removed them (and hook up your ZIP drive if you have one, once again, not pictured).

Slide the CD carrier back into the chassis fully, make sure the “ear” is through the hole as shown.

Replace the two screws from the front of the CD carrier.

Reinsert the front double door panel back into the computer as you removed it. The two tabs that protrude into the CD carrier bay will need to be gently pressed inward to align with their slots. Once you do that, the double door simply snaps closed on the front of the computer.

The installation is complete, enjoy your new burning capabilities!