Replacing HDD in Powerbook

cfleck

cfleck

tired
I'm considering replacing the HDD in my PB (as the topic says). My problem is that I'm not sure where to start on this one. Presumeably I can find out __how__ to do such a thing from the apple support pages. I've done it before on older laptops, so I imagine it isn't much different.

My question is where do I go to get one? I've got a 60 gigger in there now, but I'm thinking that 80 or larger is what I need. I know you can get 80s in them, but I'm wondering if other people have larger HDDs and what kind of price can I expect to pay for one. Also where is a good place to shop for them?

Any and all advice appreciated.
 
The internal Hard Drive that I put into my 17” PowerBook was from Seagate:

Model No. ST9100823A
Capacity: 100 GB
Speed: 5400 rpm
Seek time: 12.5 ms avg
Interface: Ultra ATA/100


The existing HD in your 17” is either 80 or 60 GB and has a speed of 4200 RPM.


Seagate drives have a 5 year warranty and are very reliable. I note from their web site that now they have “faster” (7200 RPM) 100GB HD, and they also now have 120 GB HD but in the 4200 and 5400 RPM range. The important thing is the seek time of the drive and there is obviously a direct correlation between the drive size and the RPM and the resultant seek time – though you and I won’t notice any difference as it is down to milliseconds !

I recommend you get a 120GB HD – remember, there are two sizes HD – large for desk top (3.5 inch) and small 2.5 inch (or approximate) for PowerBooks. I don’t know what it costs but I’d go for this:

Model No. ST9100824A
Capacity: 120 GB
Speed: 5400 rpm
Seek time: 12.5 ms avg
Interface: Ultra ATA/100


You can check Seagate ( http://www.seagate.com/products/discselect/index.html ) for HD products - (Ultra ATA / for Notebook PCS).

Once you have the new drive installed into your Mac, you can get an external had case for placement of the old HD to use as an external HD. I recommend the “Cutie Pocket Hard Disk Drive” case ( http://www.exim21.com/computer/cutie-dx.php ) because it is so simple to use, just plug the old HD into it and put in the screws – then it run off Firewire cable (no power supply) when connected.

Once you have the old HD in the case and connected to the new Mac by Firewire you can set about installing TIGER onto the new drive in the Mac by booting from the Tiger Disc. During the install process it will ask you if you want to copy files and data from another Mac partition or computer etc. and you select the right option so it will copy from the external.

This will make a full operating and bootable Mac with all data as before.

( Of course you can do it the other way round – new HD as external and back up to it – when it works then you switch the HDs )


See here for install instructions:

( http://babelfish.altavista.com/babe...ja_en&trurl=http://61.194.6.236/pbg417h1.html )


When you are happy that all is well (couple of weeks later) you can then delete the old HD and use it for other storage or back up purpose.


Good luck.
 
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