external mac scsi cdrom

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_netwiz.net>
Date: Fri May 21 01:06:33 1999

>Does anyone have an (external) CD-ROM that wold work on a Macintosh
>Performa? (Apologies if Performas aren't >10 yrs. I don't know macs)

In order to boot from a scsi cdrom the drive has to have a Apple Rom inside
it, which pretty much means Apple brand. OTOH you don't "have to" boot from
the cdrom to use it "like" you booted from it. The secret is to put the
driver software for the cdrom on a "disk tools" floppy and boot from the
floppy, then use the cdrom "as if" you booted from it (of course you have
to leave the floppy in and its slow when accessed). Using this technique
any CDROM drive you can find a driver for will work, and the performa part
isn't an issue AFAIK. Once the driver software is installed in the system
folder on the boot hard drive usage of non-Apple CDROM drives isn't much of
an issue either (normal non apple software fussy stuff like updates and
conflicts especially with FWB stuff).

Also putting any scsi cdrom drive into an external box isn't a big task either.

All that said, yes I do have some external CDROM drives that would work,
email me directly to find out more.
Received on Fri May 21 1999 - 01:06:33 BST