This is going to sound like an incredibly stupid question, but due to my very limited experience with Macs, it is one that I don't know the answer to. Will most CD-ROM or CDRW drives work in both a Mac and a PC, or will any given drive only work in one system or the other? Can I remove a drive from a PC, and expect it to work in a Mac? Thanks, Burrito

Hah!..not a stupid question at all, considering just how much hassle switching drives in macs can be... The answer isn't that simple., actually. Depends on the mac, the drive, the brand, and the current temperature ;-) So here goes..up until recently apples only recognized apple drives- these apple drives worked fine in the PC's because they were actually made by the same companies that made the pc drives (in fact often the same models with a litthe extra in the ROM for the mac to use)..when Macs started using IDE/ATAPI (like nearly all PCs) instead of SCSI, many more drives were compatible (theoretically all - but in practice...) With CDburners , even more again were now recognized, but only if Apple had included it in the "recognized drives" info in the system files ..unlike PC's where each company makes it's own drivers, Apple makes all the drivers for all the drives.. Even if the mac recognizes and is able to use the drive however..you won't be able to boot from it (only apple branded drives have those instructions in their rom)..which can be critical for a mac that can't boot from firewire or usb (like my Blue&White G3) one crash is all it takes to realize the need to be able to boot (remember macs haven't had floppy drives either for ages...).. because of that, my good 52x '04 burner is in my PC instead, forcing me to use a much slower 16x '99 external scsi burner in my mac..yes i know ... PC's will accept mac drives just fine however, 'cause after all their not made by apple..so as long as you've got the appropriate pc driver from the drive manufacturer (usually panasonic variants) it's no problem

hi, my CD-RW that came with my mac broke down some time ago. apple representitives here where i live wanted 700$ to replace it so i had to find an alternative. actually the "apple" CD-RW was made by sony. it was the same modle as the PC the only difference that it had a black front (which cost a little extra). anyway you can use 4 companeis safly with macs: 1) sony 2) toshiba (now makes apple's dvds) 3) pioneer 4) don't remember. and actually also most other CD-RW. some CD-RWs won't boot from drive when clickinf "c" (all the ones in the list do) but you can still boot from them if you click command+shif+space.