I have a 2007-2008 (I think) unibody macbook pro. I spilled coffee on it, and it fried the connection between the motherboard and the display. It won't turn on. The genius bar and a couple of computer repair guys (I really wanted someone to be able to work a miracle) all said that the motherboard needs to be replaced. We don't have the kind of money to replace it, so the laptop has been sitting unused for quite awhile now. I was hoping we'd eventually get the money together to fix it, but it's just not happening. So, rather than have it sitting around collecting dust, I'm thinking that I might be able to get a few bucks selling it on craigslist or ebay for parts. Does anyone have any recommendations. Also, with a fried motherboard, do I need to be concerned with the personal information/photographs that I had saved on the computer before it died? Is there any way to delete all of that without the computer turning on? Thanks so much for your help!
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Best way to make a few bucks from a dead macbook pro
- Thread starter jessicarr9
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Tear down and sale of its good components. That way you an salvage the value in whatever still works.
You can always salvage the HDD and the RAM. like sofianito said, get an enclosure for the harddrive to grab what you can from it.
I had all of my files backed up on an external hard drive, so I'm not so concerned with recovering anything. I just want to make sure that nobody else would be able to recover them, I suppose. 
I'm not very computer saavy. Someone's offered me $100 for it, as is, which, at this point sounds great. It's just taking space right now. Do I need to be worried, in the condition that it's in, that someone could access the files I had saved on it before it died, or would they not be able to do that with the motherboard being fried?
I'm not very computer saavy. Someone's offered me $100 for it, as is, which, at this point sounds great. It's just taking space right now. Do I need to be worried, in the condition that it's in, that someone could access the files I had saved on it before it died, or would they not be able to do that with the motherboard being fried?
They can still access all the files.
I'd give you $100 for itI'm not very computer saavy. Someone's offered me $100 for it, as is, which, at this point sounds great. It's just taking space right now. Do I need to be worried, in the condition that it's in, that someone could access the files I had saved on it before it died, or would they not be able to do that with the motherboard being fried?
Best thing to do would be to remove the hard drive completely. If you do that, you're good!
I'd give you $100 for it
Best thing to do would be to remove the hard drive completely. If you do that, you're good!
Is that fairly easy to do?
Yes. Moreso if it is a unibody aluminum. Go online to ifixit.com and look up the repair guide for your model # and look for the hard drive replacement guide.
It's the A1286. I'm about to start in on it now. Here's hoping I don't screw it up. (Although, it's already dead anyway, it's not like I can break it...haha)
If it is the late 2008 A1286, with the split bottom case it is ridiculously easy. 1 screw and one cable. Still kind of interested in buying this actually, though it sounds like you have other offers
If it is the late 2008 A1286, with the split bottom case it is ridiculously easy. 1 screw and one cable. Still kind of interested in buying this actually, though it sounds like you have other offers
I had an offer before I took out the hard drive. I'm not sure if they'll still be interested now or not. It's not the split bottom, it's apparently the 2009 edition, but it was still easy enough to do. If you are interested, I'd love to hear what you think it's worth in it's current condition.
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Maybe, did apple say specifically what was wrong with the motherboard or simply that it needed replacing? Glad to hear that you got the hard drive out ok. You actually could probably get an external enclosure ($15-20) and run it as an external drive. Helpful if you had some files not backed up and need to access them now...
The part where the cable that connects to the screen is fried, on the motherboard side. They say that the cable is fine, the screen is fine, but where it "plugs in" so to speak is bad. I could probably take a picture if that would be helpful.
Emailed you about it as technically I think sales are not allowed in this forum. Just as a precaution I would recommend removing your email address from a couple posts back to prevent spam, et cetera.
You can also go to the "Marketplace" section of the forums. That way you can get a nice feeler $$ for your parts.
