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Replacing an internal PowerBook hard drive

stoid

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 17, 2002
4,312
29
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
So I've got a new hard drive coming in tomorrow for my PowerBook. Faster, bigger, better! Anyway, I've got step-by-step instructions on how to physically dismantle and install the drive from the good folks at pbfixit.com. However, how do I get my drive cloned onto it? Obviously, the new drive won't function as an external drive, and neither will my old drive.

Ideas? (Re-installing everything is NOT an option)
 
1. If you have an external drive (or iPod or another computer that you can loose the data to), you can clone your HD to that. Than clone the external HD to the new one.

2. Purchase a USB or Firewire to IDE cable and power adapter. I know they have them for 3.5 inch drives I don't see why they wouldn't have them for 2.5 inch drives as well. Basically it turn your hard drive into an external HD without a case. They go for under $20. Something like this. (I think this one may be for 3.5 inch drive though). Or get a whole enclosure.

3. I know you said it isn't an option, but it is: Start from scratch. I wouldn't pick this on though.

Edit: added link.
 
Well, I do have an external 250GB LaCie drive, that I just cleaned off 150GB of old raw video footage, so I should be able to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my data onto it, and then boot from there, and select the data to clone back over to my new internal tomorrow.
 
stoid said:
Well, I do have an external 250GB LaCie drive, that I just cleaned off 150GB of old raw video footage, so I should be able to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my data onto it, and then boot from there, and select the data to clone back over to my new internal tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you best bet. It won't cost you anything but the time of cloning twice. Good luck.
 
I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow, I'll even snap some pics for those of you curious what a PowerBook looks like inside, but don't want to open yours.

I must admit though, I'm a sucker for benchmarking performance. Is there anyway to measure the speed of my current drive, and of the new one? I'd expect almost twice the performance since I'm going from 4200RPM to 7200RPM (171%). I like to know things like this for future references, whether it's really worth it to get a faster Hard Drive compared to RAM/video card/etc.
 
Make sure that there's nothing you can afford to lose on the disk/partition you're cloning to, as CCC literally clones the source, so there's nothing left on the target that wasn't on the source.
Also, I hope it doesn't take you 2 hours to replace your HD like it took me :(
 
So the Seagate drives ARE faster ehh, wonder why one 7200RPM drive would be so noticeably faster than another...

Well, I'm going from the standard Fujitsu 4K60 that my PowerBook came with to a Hitachi 7K100, so neither exact drives are listed on that scale.
 
stoid said:
So the Seagate drives ARE faster ehh, wonder why one 7200RPM drive would be so noticeably faster than another...

Well, I'm going from the standard Fujitsu 4K60 that my PowerBook came with to a Hitachi 7K100, so neither exact drives are listed on that scale.
Click to expand...

so stoid, how did things work out?
i'm thinking of upgrading to a 7k100 hitachi drive as well, so i would like to read your experiences!
 
Hey Stoid, as my email to you said, I'm doing this exact same thing this Wed Nov 2. I cloned my HD to the ext. LaCie. What now? I am worried that my partitions on the LaCie might get disturbed. I have two partitions:
  1. Multimedia-contains DVDs, personal movies, etc.
  2. Powerbook G4-contains my iPhoto, iTunes, all my backup data (including the Carbon Copy Cloner)-Clone

Once the new HD is in the powerbook how do you boot it using the clone and transfer your data? I cannot afford to lose the photo and tunes libraries!! I would rather start from scratch and reinstall all the apps (Toast, CCC, Handbrake, Senuti, etc...) and settings, I know- time consuming.

I'm upgrading from Toshiba 30 GB to Hitachi 80 GB 7200 rpm (hell yeah!)
thanks
 
wattage said:
Hey Stoid, as my email to you said, I'm doing this exact same thing this Wed Nov 2. I cloned my HD to the ext. LaCie. What now? I am worried that my partitions on the LaCie might get disturbed. I have two partitions:
  1. Multimedia-contains DVDs, personal movies, etc.
  2. Powerbook G4-contains my iPhoto, iTunes, all my backup data (including the Carbon Copy Cloner)-Clone

Once the new HD is in the powerbook how do you boot it using the clone and transfer your data? I cannot afford to lose the photo and tunes libraries!! I would rather start from scratch and reinstall all the apps (Toast, CCC, Handbrake, Senuti, etc...) and settings, I know- time consuming.

I'm upgrading from Toshiba 30 GB to Hitachi 80 GB 7200 rpm (hell yeah!)
thanks
Click to expand...
A) Double-check the cloned drive by booting from it (either use the Startup Disk prefpane, or hold option at boot)
2) Install new HD (assuming the clone is good)
III) Boot from external again, and clone from there onto the new internal.
4) Boot from internal, and enjoy
E) Have a beer, or if you don't drink, give me a beer :D
 
Thanks for the reply, I was having trouble booting from my clone--it would not show up as an option in the startup disk pref. The reason is b/c I had organized the clone into a folder verses having System, Library, Users, etc. just on there. I now have cleaned out one of my partitions and recloned without putting that info into a folder, now all is well I booted from the clone!!

This is so cool, I had never heard of this before, Thanks to MacRumors peeps.
 
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