PowerBook Hard Drive Swap: What Not To Do.

I’m not a glutton for punishment. I just like to do things myself. Including PowerBook repairs. What’s the punishment for the Do-It-Yourselfer? Worry. Anxiety. Sweat. Fear.

And with persistence, a happy ending to a scary moment. Here’s what to do when your PowerBook bites the dust.

Actually, my PowerBook didn’t bite the dust. The hard drive just stopped making noise. Then it stopped. Here’s what happened.

I bought one of the original aluminum PowerBooks about three years ago. It was the 1gHz model with a 60 gigabyte hard drive. I added 512 megabytes more RAM and bought an 80-gigabyte external Firelite drive from SmartDisk.

If you haven’t tried a Mac PowerBook you’re in for a treat. If you have one already, then you know what I mean. The PowerBook is what a laptop should be. Or, “is” if you are blessed by divine intervention and are an owner.

Over the past three years some things in Mac computing life have changed. You can now get 60 gigabyte iPods. Suddenly, with iPhoto and iTunes and iTMS and digital cameras, that original Toshiba 60 gigabyte hard drive, which seemed so huge barely 36 months ago, was now oh so small.

My desktop Mac needed at least 120 gigabytes of storage and I was convinced my PowerBook needed it too.

I read about the new Seagate 120 gig laptop drive a few months ago so I decided to wait it out before replacing the PowerBook’s original drive. Last week, the original became a has-been. Two days of noise and slow awakening from sleep (normally near instant in a PowerBook) caused me to suspect the worst.

My fears were not in vain. Early this past week my PowerBook’s hard drive died. Suddenly, though not unexpectedly. Fortunately, I’d backed everything up to the 80 gig Firelite, but clearly I needed a new hard drive. No, the S.M.A.R.T status never changed until there was no more status.

PowerBookResQ to the rescue. I just happened across one of their banner ads while looking for replacement hard drives. For about $70 over the cost of the replacement hard drive itself, PowerBookResQ would pick up my laptop, fix it, send it back.

“When putting in the remaining two screws to hold the keyboard assembly to the frame, I lost another screw. It fell into the laptop just like the other one and I couldn’t find it.”While that was tempting, I’m still a Do-It-Yourselfer™ at heart. I called and ordered the 120 gigabyte Seagate drive. Overnight shipping via DHL was $6.00. What? Only $6.00?

That’s what you get when doing business with those wonderful folks in the Midwest. Courtesy. Professionalism. In stock products. A friendly smile (on the phone). And a new PowerBook hard drive the very next day.

You’re probably asking, “Why didn’t you let PowerBookResQ do the job?” In retrospect that would have been a more pleasant alternative. I’m a card carrying member of the Glutton-For-Punishment Club™ and was behind in my dues.

Those ResQ folks have been around awhile. They do PowerMacs, they do PowerBooks, they do iPods. They’re specialists. I’m a guy with a Philips head screwdriver, a set of Torx wrenches, and an attitude.

Besides, I found This Link on About.com and figured I could do it myself. It looked easy. Only 7 steps. Step 1 was ‘start here.’ Step 7 was, ‘you’re done.’ How hard could it be?

A few missing screws, a crumpled ribbon cable, an extra part, and more missing screws later, well, for the rest of the adventure, click on to PAGE 2. Feel my pain.