Hi Sheriff, Thanks for the information. I too have a Late 2005 G5, so have been following your thread. I have a question about your circuit. Is there a reason why you chose to use a relay in the circuit? Usually a transistor can provide the switching capability directly, it is just a matter of determining if the direction the current will flow between sense_send and sense_return.I've finished the front panel, I blew all the components off the front panel PCB with an SMD rework tool and attached a USB and firewire lead that I got off of ebay to the pins on the connectors. Then I made up a small relay board to adapt the apple audio out to the standard intel HD audio front panel connector. It works a treat! I have attached my circuit diagram (more like a circuit sketch!) if anyone else wants to use it.
wow! this mod looks amazing! how did you mac your special HDD LED?
I still couldn't boot unless in safe mode, until a very helpful soul pointed out an issue with 10.8.2's ACPI kext then............BOOM! I'm in full blown hack-attack-a-mac heaven.