MacBook Air SuperDrive super hack makes it work with any computer

As tnkgrl mentions at the outset of this hack, the MacBook Air SuperDrive is a nice little slice of hotness, retailing for a mere $99, and doing the whole external drive thing with Apple's sense of style. Unfortunately, it only works with the MacBook Air due to a proprietary IDE to USB bridge, as tnkgrl discovered. For a mere $9 she was able to find a replacement part, and after pushing some internals around she had her self a Mac mini and HP Mini-Note-friendly USB disc drive. We've all been laboring under the assumption that Apple needed more than the standard USB power draw, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that she was able to pull this off with a regular part, and we demand Apple start selling $108 SuperDrives-for-all immediately. Er, please?

[tnkgrl Posted Jun 24th 2008 3:05PM]

It's not a blanket, silly... It's my custom made MacBook Air sleeve in a rainbow fleece!

Since we're currently celebrating pride here in San Francisco, I decided it would be fitting - not to mention it protected my MBA SuperDrive case from scratches :)

[PuckOTG22 Posted Jun 24th 2008 3:56PM]

haha...Well, we are celebrating gay pride this month in Nashville too - I guess June is gay pride month. However, I still don't wear rainbow things. I prefer to be more subtle...like my "Intercourse 69" hat. :-D hahahaha But way to go for creativity - even if I do hate seeing all those colors together. I guess only a homo like myself would comment on the colors of something instead of what you actually did. :-) But seriously - great job. I was just trying to be a smart a**

Happy Pride!

[The Turtle Posted Jun 24th 2008 11:47AM]

I have a MacBook Pro with a dying internal SuperDrive. Early one, so it's not even dual-layer. As an Apple part, it's hard to get, and aftermarket ones that are dual-layer and compatible run anywhere from $149 to $249 even if I install it myself, which is a Hugh Jass pain. Instead, I can end up with a bus-powered MBA drive hacked to work on the iBook or my wife's MacBook or my machine at work, for $108, no having to open the MBP's case.

One thing about MBPs, though, is that the USB ports are underpowered and not matched. I have several USB drives that will spin up on the right-hand USB port but not on the left, so if the MBA drive has a higher-than-normal current draw, it's probably not a good risk. My iBook's USB ports were much tougher.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 12:11PM]

exactly. I have a 2.5" disk that works on 2 ports of my laptop but not the 3rd, and doesn't work on my desktop at all without a power brick. tnkgrl just got lucky that the mini and that HP happened to be OK with providing out of spec power, this will not work for everyone.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 1:30PM]

Read the site following the break...WOW. It is unthinkable and unbefitting a company of Apple's size and stature to be such a bunch of crooks about this. First one that steered me away from Apple? Itunes propriety format. Yes, lets make it HARDER for people to transfer music back to a non- apple device then ALSO make it erase your music when a non-techy individual hooks it up to another pc. GOLDEN. Now this? COME ON APPLE YOU ARE DOING SO GOOD WITH GETTING MORE MARKET SHARE BECAUSE OF VISTA! DONT BE JERKS!

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 5:42PM]

The only proprietary formats iTunes uses are Apple Lossless and I guess the DRM'd files from the iTunes store... By default, it encodes things in AAC, which is not proprietary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 2:25PM]

damn, this is fine stuff. the problem is getting the replacement part though... I have an external DVD writer, but it draws power from the wall sockets... This USB powered drive certainly has the edge.

[sinai Posted Jun 24th 2008 2:54PM]

$99 drive + $9 (retail) in parts = $249 brand new work anywhere Apple USB slim drive!

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 17th 2008 3:36AM]

are we sayin that the optical drive in the mba "superdrive" is a normal ide dvd drive? and the reason why it wont work as an "external" for anything other than the MBA is cuz of the bridge? if so, i could replace my dead powerbook superdrive with the innards of the mba "superdrive"? they have same space requirements, right?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 19th 2008 9:46AM]

I made an improvement. The method described by tnkgrl requires the cristal on (new) the interface board to be relocated and this is dangerous beacause it means that the drive can suddenly stop working for a while and destroys the CD/DVD if it is in the burning phase.
I worked out a hack that DOES NOT REQUIRE TO RELOCATE THE CRYSTAL.
If someone is interested I can publish the details of this modding currentrly working on my Air Superdrive.