As the name implies, reader Bill Palm is a handy guy and would like to replace the CD-ROM drive in his eMac with a dual-layer DVD burner. “Can it be done?” he wonders.
Yes, it can.
The first thing you need is a compatible burner and that would be the Pioneer DVR-108, which Other World Computing sells for $108.
Once you have the drive, you’ll have to open the eMac. Instructions for doing so can be found on Paul Wilkinson’s Weblog.
Finally, for the drive to be recognized by the eMac you’ll need a copy of Patchburn, a third-party utility that brings drive compatibility to those Macs running Mac OS X 10.2.x or 10.3.x. With this patch in place the drive should be recognized as a native device (with full iTunes and iLife support) by the Mac.