Damaged Outermost Conductor of Ribbon Cable to Superdrive

[snooktarpon]

I was having issues with ejecting DVD/CDs on G4 MDD. So I removed the CD drive caddy to access the front to the superdrive. In doing so, I must have damaged the outermost conductor of the ribbon cable. I cannot tell if is completely severed but definitely most of the conductor damaged. See the attached picture. Note the view is facing from the rear of the G4.

I've inserted several discs and the superdrive appears to read them just fine.

So does anyone know if the this conductor is critical for the superdrive operation? My plan was to just cover it with electrical tape unless I should replace it.

If I should replace it, what is the cable replacement cable? Is it an ATA/IDE 40 pin cable?

[GaryN]

That is line/pin #1. It's officially labelled "reset" in the IDE spec.
I'm not 100% certain but that just might mean "eject" in this case which would explain the symptom.
If it's broken it can be fixed if you have a small soldering iron, maybe a little bit of fine wire and basic soldering skills.
If not, the cable on that bus is 40-pin. All of the connectors should be grey. The other HDD cables are 80-pin - they have black, blue and grey connectors.

[macarone]

>I've inserted several discs and the superdrive appears to read them just fine.

Does this mean that the Eject key works to open the drawer when the drive is empty? If so, I would think the cable is not the problem.

>I was having issues with ejecting DVD/CDs on G4 MDD.

I had 2 optical drives installed, and was having issues with the second drive because Apple forces you to connect it as a "slave" on the single optical cable that serves both drives. All optical drive instructions indicate that optical drives must be connected as "Master".

I replaced the 2 IDE optical drives with SATA drives connected to a SeriTek PCI card, only to have the same problem you describe. The Eject key DOES depend on the IDE cable.

Solution is described here:
https://www.macworld.com/article/176744/softwarebargains2.html

I'm attaching the file: Ardiem 1.1.1

You may still need to replace the IDE optical drive cable.

[snooktarpon]

The superdrive eject problems were mainly because I didn't have a Mac keyboard and mouse. I was using a PC USB keyboard and mouse and holding down the mouse on boot doesn't eject the disc. I was stuck with the disc icon and the question mark so I need to open the superdirive to insert a install/restore disc.

I'm able to read DVDs and CDs and eject the discs.

I figured I could solder the conductor if necessary but I know a lot of time that only a percentage of conductors are actually needed.

I think I'll just tape the cable and if and issues in the future, I'll either repair the conductor or replace the cable.