Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Installing SATA DVD Drive in MacPro3,1

M

mfletcher

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 10, 2009
23
0
Hi,

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro and recently the DVD Drive has started to fail on it. Specifically the drive wont eject easily. I have to press the eject button several times before it will open. Its a Pioneer model that's susceptible to this kind of problem.

The drive is a PATA drive, and Im finding it hard to find a decent PATA replacement online. Cant find any on Newegg. I can find used PATA drives online, but Id prefer to buy a new one.

I read somewhere that theres an additional two SATA connectors on the MacPro 3,1 mobo that I could use to connect a SATA DVD Drive to it, but are there any repurcussions to doing this? For example, if I use a SATA DVD Drive, will I still be able to use it to at boot for installation?

Thanks in advance,

Mark
 
mfletcher said:
Hi,

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro and recently the DVD Drive has started to fail on it. Specifically the drive wont eject easily. I have to press the eject button several times before it will open. Its a Pioneer model that's susceptible to this kind of problem.

The drive is a PATA drive, and Im finding it hard to find a decent PATA replacement online. Cant find any on Newegg. I can find used PATA drives online, but Id prefer to buy a new one.

I read somewhere that theres an additional two SATA connectors on the MacPro 3,1 mobo that I could use to connect a SATA DVD Drive to it, but are there any repurcussions to doing this? For example, if I use a SATA DVD Drive, will I still be able to use it to at boot for installation?

Thanks in advance,

Mark
Click to expand...

I would think you could boot from it but someone else hopefully has a more certain answer. From what I understand, those ports are disabled in Boot Camp, so if you run Windows, the drive may not work.
 
I have done this with my Mac Pro 3,1 and yes, if I remember correctly, you can boot off it in OSX, I also believe you can do so in bootcamp, I believe the issues with the two extra SATA connectors was that you could not boot your bootcamped HD off them, but I may be wrong about that. In any event you'll need to fish a SATA cable through a small opening at the front of the case to reach the two extra SATA ports, its a bit of a PIA but it can be done. I currently have an LG Bluray burner and a HD connected to those two ports.
 
Sincerely,
you shouldn't have any problem slapping an ide/sata adapter on a new sata drive and hooking it up in your 3.1. The ONLY reason I don't state it unequivocably is that I've never actually done it on a MacPro 3.1, but I've used these adapters to hook up a SATA drive in a Dell Tower, to put a sata dvd burner drive in a usb ide housing, and an ide hard drive in a Dell tower with sata.

You can buy them from TigerDirect for 20-30 bucks or get one on flea-bay for about 5 bucks.
Note: for space reasons in the MacPro's optical bay the 'flat' low-profile version is likely to be your best bet.

Yes, I am glad to be using a MacPro 5.1 and no longer trapped in Dell Hell!

Richard in Michigan
 
SATA optical drive connected to the SATA ports in your 3,1 cannot be used to boot Windows discs.

There will also be no AHCI in Windows for your SATA drive, but you wouldn't have that with an IDE drive anyway.

There are still new PATA drives for sale. I did a search on Amazon for "ide dvd drive" and they certainly still exist.
 
LeicaM8 said:
Sincerely,
you shouldn't have any problem slapping an ide/sata adapter on a new sata drive and hooking it up in your 3.1. The ONLY reason I don't state it unequivocably is that I've never actually done it on a MacPro 3.1, but I've used these adapters to hook up a SATA drive in a Dell Tower, to put a sata dvd burner drive in a usb ide housing, and an ide hard drive in a Dell tower with sata.

You can buy them from TigerDirect for 20-30 bucks or get one on flea-bay for about 5 bucks.
Note: for space reasons in the MacPro's optical bay the 'flat' low-profile version is likely to be your best bet.

Yes, I am glad to be using a MacPro 5.1 and no longer trapped in Dell Hell!

Richard in Michigan
Click to expand...

Yeah, the IDE > SATA adapter will definitely work. There are plenty of them available. Also SATA DVD burner drives are $15-20 now. IDE is more than enough for a SATA optical drive.

ActionableMango said:
SATA optical drive connected to the SATA ports in your 3,1 cannot be used to boot Windows discs.

There will also be no AHCI in Windows for your SATA drive, but you wouldn't have that with an IDE drive anyway.

There are still new PATA drives for sale. I did a search on Amazon for "ide dvd drive" and they certainly still exist.
Click to expand...

Yes, also eBay is a good place to look at as well. I'm sure you can find an IDE drive for dirt cheap. However, maybe the OP can put in a Blu-ray drive since he has to upgrade anyway.
 
Thanks everyone for the help - looks like I'll try the IDE/SATA adapter with a SATA drive - that way I have a greater variety of drives to choose from.
 
Ok,

So went on newegg and bought the following.

Pioneer Blu Ray / DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129071

Koutech IDE / SATA Adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812240012

Installed in my MacPro 3,1 tonight. I can use the drive to read dvd's no problem at all, but as soon as I try to burn something the computer locks up hard. Im suspecting its the IDE / SATA Adapter.

Can anyone recommend an IDE / SATA adapter that you can use in your MacPro in conjunction with a DVD Burner?
 
Why not simply run a SATA data cable (or 2) from the motherboard SATA plugs (there are 2 of them under the fan shroud) and directly connect your SATA BluRay burner instead of fooling around with IDE/SATA converters? The cables are cheap and it is easy to run them up through the front corner of the optical drive bay. You can also get a cheap molex-to-dual SATA-power adapter cable which will power 2 drives if you want a SSD or another HD up there as well.
 
hfg said:
Why not simply run a SATA data cable (or 2) from the motherboard SATA plugs (there are 2 of them under the fan shroud) and directly connect your SATA BluRay burner instead of fooling around with IDE/SATA converters?
Click to expand...

I could do that, but I use bootcamp and I want the drive accessible from Windows. Unfortunately the ODD sata ports are not available to windows.
 
To re-iterate..

The ODD ports on 3,1 Mac Pro only work with Mac OS X and booting Mac OS X installers and any Mac applications DVDs.. They WON'T work with booting non-OS X systems.

Again, in order to make this happen you would need to set up a GRUB boot loader in Linux and order Linux to load the AHCI drivers and then you can boot into Windows. This was a firmware goof up by Apple. Apple crippled the ODD ports - another reason why they don't want you to upgrade.

I am not sure about the ODD ports on 1,1 and 2,1 Mac Pros. Can someone shed some light on booting non-mac operating systems on those Mac Pros? Maybe Apple did not cripple the firmware on those?
 
If you have a Velocity x2 card with mounted SSD for booting OS X, could you use the second (aux) SATA port on the x2 card to connect to a optical drive and have it useable/bootable in Windows?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back