Replacing hard drive - 15" Alum PowerBook, Latches?

[atari1356]

I'm in the middle of trying to replace the hard drive in my 15" G4 Aluminum PowerBook (my old drive died)- and am stuck on trying to free the latches behind the DVD slot.

Has anybody else tried this?

At first I was going by the IFixit Guide (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/54.8.0.html), but wasn't having any luck freeing the latch.

Then I saw this other guide to opening the PowerBook (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/PB_G4_15_AL_takeapart/AL_PB_G4_take-apart.html) and it says there are 3 latches instead of one... and tells you to insert a screwdriver in the DVD slot to pry the latches open. That's not working for me either.

Does anybody have any tips on this? This is getting very frustrating. :o :mad:

[atari1356]

NEVERMIND... I got it finally. The way that Ifixit guide has you do it is bogus. I bent part of the latch forward trying it that way - so the key was pushing the bottom part of the latch back in, then it came free.

The other guide is wrong too, where it says that the internal latches line up with the gaps in the DVD dust cover. The two latches on the right are actually further to the right of those gaps. The latch on the left does however line up with the gap. I bent some tweezers to make a sort of hook which made it easier to get at the latches.

*phew* now to install the new drive and see if I can get this thing back together