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upgrading powerbook g4. questions!

I

itou

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
222
0
hi,

in my desperate attempt to save my powerbook g4 from demise, i've ordered as much ram as the powerbook can have, and a 250gb IDE drive. question is, when i pop the new drive in, must i format it to mac? if so, how do i do it?

the attempt here is to start fresh with leopard on the powerbook. i've got the leopard retail dvd and i want to know if it's as simple as plugging the new hdd in, popping in leopard and doing an install. sounds too simple?

thanks a lot! want to feel good before i take apart anything. :D
 
TDM21

TDM21

macrumors 6502a
Jul 7, 2004
789
0
Once you get the new drive installed you can format it using Disk Utility. If you boot off the Leopard install DVD you can find the program under the Utilities menu. Once you setup a partition on the new drive, close out Disk Utility and finish the install process.
 
I

itou

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
222
0
you mean i can format the new drive using the new drive?? :eek: i'm a bit confused but don't you need to format the drive first to use it?
 
agentphish

agentphish

macrumors 65816
Sep 7, 2004
1,140
0
You might be careful...that drive will generate more heat than your original, I've read that PB's really don't handle higher than 120gb nicely from a heat standpoint.

Just FYI.
 
J

jsr3012

macrumors newbie
Nov 25, 2008
2
0
upgrading powerbook G4

I just completed the installation of a 250GB hard drive in a similar notebook last week.
Steps:
1. Backup drive to external drive or backup selected data only.
2. Removed hard drive as per instructions from fixit website
3. Installed new 250GB drive
4. Inserted Tiger in DVD drive, (for some reason Leopard would not install, dont know why yet), Used Disk Utility Menu that appears during boot process to initialise new drive
5. Copied data back from old drive using external SATA/IDE to USB adapter
6. Removed DVD booted from new drive

On my first attempt the notebook did not see the new drive.
I opened inotebook back up and diconnected the ahrd drive then remade it again, it worked thereafter.
I have not noticed any extra heat being generated.
The external firewire drive I used to backup 80G, to got very hot.
 
A

adogtruckPB

macrumors newbie
Dec 29, 2008
1
0
How do you save apps?

I was reading this thread and have been thinking of doing the same upgrades with my powerbook G4. However, is there a way to "image" or "save" my OS with all of the apps and transfer it to the new HD? I am currently running Mac OS X version 10.4.11. Do I also need to upgrade my OS?

current system specs:
Powerbook G4 aluminum 15"
1.67 GHz PowerPC G4
1 GB DDR SDRAM
80g HDD
Mac OSX 10.4.11

Potential upgrade:
250 gb HD
2 GB DDR SDRAM
 
C

Cory5412

macrumors member
May 14, 2004
84
5
Arizona
An easy way to make the transition would be to install your old hard disk into a firewire enclosure that you can boot from, and install the new drive into the powerbook. Then boot the PowerBook from the firewire drive, and use disk utility to format the new drive. (give it a name like "new drive" or something, to avoid confusion.) Then use a utility like SuperDuper (my preferred one) or Carbon Copy Cloner to copy your data. Once that gets done, shut the machine down, unhook the firewire drive, and you should be able to boot from the new drive. Everything should work really well.

It's also a good way to copy one setup to a bunch of different macs for a computer lab.
 
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