ScienceMan just did an upgrade on his G3 All-in-One, a Mac of choice before the iMac cutsie-stepped it's way onto the scene. Pardon the lack of relevance to science, but I am a huge fan of this machine - so, here are the steps to upgrade the stock 24x CD-ROM to a fast CD-RW.

I used a Sony CRX1611-82U:

Of course, it says it's only for Windows, but who cares? After installing, it works fines with the Mac and burns CDs just fine with Toast, but is not recognized by Apple's iTunes or Disc Burner software (if you have Toast, you really don't care!) However, I'm hoping updated iTunes will recognize the drive.

The first step is to remove the interior tray of the All-in-One see ScienceMan's hard drive upgrade page for those instructions.

After you've got the whole tray extracted, set it upright like so, on a soft surface:

Looking up at the back of the CD-ROM, you'll see three connectors, from left to right, power, ATA cable, and audio:

Disconnect all three cables, but make sure when you disconnect the audio you are depressing the little clip, otherwise it will resist coming out:

Now go back to the top and press up on the clip that is part of the sled that is attached to the CD-ROM - as you pull up, the whole sled will slide out:

Note the steel retainer on the front of the CD, remove it to place on the new CDRW.

Once you've got the CD-ROM out, you'll have to remove the 4 screws and use them to attach the sled to the new CDRW:

Once you've done this, you simply reverse all the previous steps! Slide the sled back in, connect the three connectors, then slide the whole tray back into the machine, being careful to reconnect all your cables, and you're done! Your G3 AIO now sports a fast CDRW!

By the way, the machine boots fine from the CDRW, both with the original software CD and with burnt bootable emergency CDs.