New iMac "Superdrive"

The replacement Superdrive for the iMac arrived today and I just finished installing it.

There’s only one word to describe the job: nasty.

These iMacs really don’t have any "user serviceable" parts inside. To get access to the innards you need to remove a bunch of screws; all but two of them are "torx" screws, which serves as the first "KEEP OUT" sign.

Titling up and removing the front panel requires you to struggle against metallic plates glued to it, and everything inside is covered by two separate pieces of metallic/plastic sheeting attached with adhesive. Easily removed; impossible to put back exactly the way it was before: there will always be evidence of your trespassing. I guess when they do this in Apple repair centres they either put on new sheeting and brackets, or they have the appropriate adhesives on hand to patch things back up. In my case I guess my iMac will never be the same again as there is a distinct loose feeling in the top right corner now where one of the brackets came off the plastic and I pushed it back on by hand.

Once inside getting the optical drive out is a royal pain (torx screws even on the inside, and what’s more you need an L-shaped torx screwdriver to do the job easily). Some drops of sweat were shed trying to get the old drive out and then the screws back in place once the new one was in. I was pleased to see that even though it’s not the same brand and model as the original, it was a perfect fit.

I put everything back together and the drive is recognized by the system profiler and it works. Good. Now I can get back to my daily backups. Also, the new drive doesn’t eject discs onto the floor; it just spits them out far enough for you to grab them when you’re ready.

All of this didn’t come without a scare. I previously mentioned that the machine’s power socket (or whatever it’s attached to) is at the end of its life. After reassembling the machine it wouldn’t turn on. For a few minutes I feared I’d fried or damaged something inside. Reseating the power cable "fixed" it.

So will be treating the machine with kid gloves from here on, trying not to touch it and trying not to even bump the desk, and hope that it continues to work until I save up the money for a replacement machine.

Update

I received the following question via email:

I’m especially interested how you adapted the front panel of your new DVR-K06 because this is not trivial: did you adapt the DVR’s original black panel? Maybe drill two small holes in it and make a notch in it or something else? Or are you using the Apple original panel (from the UJ) — I know that the holes on UJ’s body and Apple’s drive mouth brackets aren’t identical with the DVR’s body and the DVR’s drive mouth brackets? How did you do this operation? Maybe photos?

You’re certainly right that it is not trivial, except perhaps for someone working in a certified repair center with all the right tools and replacement parts. I would have liked to post some photos but my camera is currently on loan and voyaging through Europe.

It seems to me that all of the external dimensions of the DVR-K06 are identical to those on the UJ-846. This includes both the location of the socket (and the two screws that hold the plug in the socket) as well as the four screws you use to mount the body into the black Apple bracket.

As for the front plate, I just took off the one that came with the Pioneer, carefully separated the old UJ-846 from the Apple-provided plate (still in the iMac), and inserted the new drive. I had no problems getting the new drive to mesh with the old plate. Perhaps I was just lucky. I don’t see any problems with the slot in the new drive lining up exactly where the old one did.

I’d also like to flash the drive to use RPC1 (regionless) firmware but that would require me to install Boot Camp and Windows in order to run the flasher, so I guess I’ll just have to use VLC to play DVDs from other regions in the meantime. This is still better than the way things were with the dastardly UJ-846, which was neither flashable nor susceptible to being bypassed via VLC.