I decided to breathe an extra year of life into my 12" PowerBook Rev. D. This meant bumping the RAM from 768 to 1.25, and installing a new hard drive (from 60 to 120). Leopard will come this weekend, and provide a welcome boost from 10.3.9 (never got tiger).
The RAM was easy. 70 bucks from OWC, and I haven't seen a page out in a week!
The HD upgrade was the challenge, and I think I did it! I followed the instructions from iFixit.com and faqintosh.com. Neither was completely accurate, but it got me through. For those contemplating an HD upgrade, here are my thoughts:
1) I cloned my internal to a backup drive, using superduper. I verified that I could boot from this external before proceeding.
2) There was no EMI finger in the RAM drawer. None of the pictures I saw matched what I was looking at. So I just removed the long black screw and proceeded.
3) Having removed the keyboard and taken out all the screws, there are three connectors that ifixit recommends disengaging. The trackpad one was easy, because it had an orange plastic loop attached for this purpose. A few gentle tugs, and she was done.
There were two others, near the left side of the PB, and I declined to remove those. Access would have been very difficult, and they warn you not to tug the wires, or accidently pull the socket from the logic board.
As a result, the top case was never completely freehowever, you can just tilt it out of the way.
4) Removing the top case was the hardest partit was attached by many clips, and as I said in step 3, there were still some wires connecting it, so I had to be careful not to pull too hard.
5) None of the guides included instructions for putting it back together, and now having done it, I can see why... it's easy. The hardest part was getting the keyboard connector back in, because access is a little tight with the keyboard hovering over the hole. But it wasn't too bad.
6) I printed iFixit's screw guide, and laid it next to an ice cube tray. All the screws were thus accounted for and safely contained.
7) Disassembly and installling new HD: 35 minutes. Putting it back together: 10-15 minutes.
So I booted from the external, and superduper is cloning my old data from the external onto the new internal drive. Technically, this means I still have to verify everything is working by booting from the internal. Not to jinx it, but I think I'm in the clear. System profiler showed my RAM is still recognized, and booting from the external went smoothly.
So I'm good, I think. The upgrades (RAM, HD, Leopard) will run about $200, which I think is money well spent if I get another good year out of the PowerBook. By early 2009, I'm sure Apple will enjoy selling me a machine (MacBook or hopefully small MBP) from the refurb store.
Hoo-Ah!!!!
The RAM was easy. 70 bucks from OWC, and I haven't seen a page out in a week!
The HD upgrade was the challenge, and I think I did it! I followed the instructions from iFixit.com and faqintosh.com. Neither was completely accurate, but it got me through. For those contemplating an HD upgrade, here are my thoughts:
1) I cloned my internal to a backup drive, using superduper. I verified that I could boot from this external before proceeding.
2) There was no EMI finger in the RAM drawer. None of the pictures I saw matched what I was looking at. So I just removed the long black screw and proceeded.
3) Having removed the keyboard and taken out all the screws, there are three connectors that ifixit recommends disengaging. The trackpad one was easy, because it had an orange plastic loop attached for this purpose. A few gentle tugs, and she was done.
There were two others, near the left side of the PB, and I declined to remove those. Access would have been very difficult, and they warn you not to tug the wires, or accidently pull the socket from the logic board.
As a result, the top case was never completely freehowever, you can just tilt it out of the way.
4) Removing the top case was the hardest partit was attached by many clips, and as I said in step 3, there were still some wires connecting it, so I had to be careful not to pull too hard.
5) None of the guides included instructions for putting it back together, and now having done it, I can see why... it's easy. The hardest part was getting the keyboard connector back in, because access is a little tight with the keyboard hovering over the hole. But it wasn't too bad.
6) I printed iFixit's screw guide, and laid it next to an ice cube tray. All the screws were thus accounted for and safely contained.
7) Disassembly and installling new HD: 35 minutes. Putting it back together: 10-15 minutes.
So I booted from the external, and superduper is cloning my old data from the external onto the new internal drive. Technically, this means I still have to verify everything is working by booting from the internal. Not to jinx it, but I think I'm in the clear. System profiler showed my RAM is still recognized, and booting from the external went smoothly.
So I'm good, I think. The upgrades (RAM, HD, Leopard) will run about $200, which I think is money well spent if I get another good year out of the PowerBook. By early 2009, I'm sure Apple will enjoy selling me a machine (MacBook or hopefully small MBP) from the refurb store.
Hoo-Ah!!!!