PowerBook Hard Drive Swap: What Not To Do.

Monday, August 1, 2005 | Hardware | Read or Post a Comment

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.... (excerpted).

1 Reader Comments

davidd said:

Your “adventure” replacing a PowerBook hard drive was entertaining to read, seeing as how I have just completed the same project for the first time. Yeah, those magnets—I figured out where the screws were going quickly enough, but had a hard time getting some of them back in the holes, because the magnet was so strong, it would yank the screw out of the slot before I could pin it down with a screwdriver!

Turns out I coulda saved myself some big bucks. When my HD died, following several other problems (including a previous HD failure 18 months ago - covered by warranty at that time, but no longer), I went ahead and “invested in” a new MacBook Pro. The Apple tech told me new hard drives are pretty inexpensive, and not too difficult to install. So I ordered one, found a nifty illustrated installation guide online, and got it installed today. Almost lost the little clip that secures the track pad cable; and yeah, like you, I put it back together without threading the trackpad cable in properly. Yup, three complete disassemblies.

Not having done this before, I didn’t know about formatting the new HD—which is what led me to this site. By the time I got that figured out, the battery was almost flat. I plugged in the power cord, it lit up for a moment, then it quit. No light. “Power cord not connected” message. Like, huh? So I took the PowerBook apart, again, thinking I had inadvertently disconnected something.

Nope. The computer is okay (as far as I can tell). Apparently, and oh so coincidentally, the power adapter chose this moment to stop working. I found a car adapter which I had completely forgotten I had (and had never used) and tried plugging it in that way. Whattaya know, it worked! I managed to get OSX 10.4 installed, and now the PowerBook is sitting out in my car charging up.

Which probably means I’ll have a dead car battery in the morning.

Anyway… extended warranties are a good thing; and as for this do-it-yourself stuff… isn’t that a “PC” kind of thing? Us Mac people, we’re supposed to be able to just plug ‘em in, and they work—perfectly, simply, and forever!

We’ll see how long my repair/upgrade lasts.

Anyway, thanx (four years later) for the entertaining read!

—Dave
June 2009

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