HD replacement advice...

[jmsait19]

I have a couple questions...

At my work we have a 12" PB, 1st gen (867Mhz I believe), and the hard drive just died. Coincdentally I am considering upgrading the drive in my 1st gen Al PB (1Ghz, 60GB). My boss has thrown out the idea of buying my 60GB drive and then I would upgrade my personal computer's drive. I have a couple of questions on that.

-Are the two drives interchangable?

-If I upgrade my drive will it void my AppleCare (it only last until October anyways)?

-If I buy a new drive, it seems Hitachi, Seagate, and Wetern Digital are the thre recommended ways to go. Is there a favorite amongst those three? (right now I am eyeing a WD drive 5400rpm, 100gb, 8mb cache with the whisper drive technology)

If you know about these thing, please let me know...


Thanks,

Jason

 

[®îçhå®?]

Yes the two drives can be switched. As to a hard drive to buy, i personally would not go Hitachi because of my preferances. Changing a hard drive should not void your Applecare.

Quick afterthought, is your native language English????

 

[Duffman]

Mate,

Dont do it!

I cannot dissuade you in strong enough terms from swapping an HD by yourself on the 12'' Alu books, these books are EXTREMELY fragile once you get under the hood.

I was witness to a complete HD upgrade disaster in a 12'' PB not too long ago. My friend tried to swap his out for a newer HD, and as he was removing the keyboard, he snapped the extremely fragile connector that holds the keyboard in place. This is a very small piece of plastic that is nearly irreplacable, and the bit that he broke connected the keyboard to the logic board, rendering the connection betwennt the keyboard and the logic board almost impossible--(the only fix was kapton tape), or a new 600 dollar logic board. This little piece of plastic, as small as it may be, (about 1mm) ended up creating a disaster, and now the keyboard works sporadically at best.

Furthermore, this upgrade will INDEED void your AppleCare, Apple does NOT list this upgrade as a "user upgrade". Go forward if you want, but do so with extreme caution, and know that Apple will have none of it, should you break something whilst in there. As far as HDs, should you go through with it , Ive had good luck with Seagate. Might want to look into using an external FW drive as a boot source, although I cant say for sure if that will work. (Works with OS 9, though) It may work in Target disk mode, but I would suggest having a google before doing so.

 

[®îçhå®?]

Mate,

Dont do it!

I cannot dissuade you in strong enough terms from swapping an HD by yourself on the 12'' Alu books, these books are EXTREMELY fragile once you get under the hood.

I was witness to a complete HD upgrade disaster in a 12'' PB not too long ago. My friend tried to swap his out for a newer HD, and as he was removing the keyboard, he snapped the extremely fragile connector that holds the keyboard in place. This is a very small piece of plastic that is nearly irreplacable, and the bit that he broke connected the keyboard to the logic board, rendering the connection betwennt the keyboard and the logic board almost impossible--(the only fix was kapton tape), or a new 600 dollar logic board. This little piece of plastic, as small as it may be, (about 1mm) ended up creating a disaster, and now the keyboard works sporadically at best.

It is easy to take the keyboard off, he must have done it inadequately.

If you do not want to do it then don't but, if you do, it would be safe to do it after you Applecare has expired.

 

[jmsait19]

Mate,

Dont do it!

I cannot dissuade you in strong enough terms from swapping an HD by yourself on the 12'' Alu books, these books are EXTREMELY fragile once you get under the hood.

I was witness to a complete HD upgrade disaster in a 12'' PB not too long ago. My friend tried to swap his out for a newer HD, and as he was removing the keyboard, he snapped the extremely fragile connector that holds the keyboard in place. This is a very small piece of plastic that is nearly irreplacable, and the bit that he broke connected the keyboard to the logic board, rendering the connection betwennt the keyboard and the logic board almost impossible--(the only fix was kapton tape), or a new 600 dollar logic board. This little piece of plastic, as small as it may be, (about 1mm) ended up creating a disaster, and now the keyboard works sporadically at best.

Furthermore, this upgrade will INDEED void your AppleCare, Apple does NOT list this upgrade as a "user upgrade". Go forward if you want, but do so with extreme caution, and know that Apple will have none of it, should you break something whilst in there. As far as HDs, should you go through with it , Ive had good luck with Seagate. Might want to look into using an external FW drive as a boot source, although I cant say for sure if that will work. (Works with OS 9, though) It may work in Target disk mode, but I would suggest having a google before doing so.

I actually work in a technical environment. I'm a production tech at a 5,000 member church, and my boss, the technical director, took the 12" apart already. He didn't mention breaking anything. He is actually a whiz at things like that.

Thanks for the advice though... After witnessing him do this, it is certainly not something i'd recommend for everyone.

People seem to be split on the AppleCare issue, I will certainly look into it a little more.

 

[jmsait19]

Wow, reality check.


I've spoken English my whole life. I promise I do not speak as disjointed as I type. I was just trying to be 'corporate' and formal and sound intelligent and all. Apparently I can't fake that very well. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[jmsait19]

Yes the two drives can be switched. As to a hard drive to buy, i personally would not go Hitachi because of my preferances. Changing a hard drive should not void your Applecare.

Did you have a bad experience with a Hitachi drive? Actually a Hitachi drive is what came in my PowerBook. I believe the one in the 12" was a Toshiba, which I have read a couple of things about.

 

[Duffman]

True, Im sure that he probably bent a few things in the wrong direction to get this little connector to break, but Ive seen it, and it really is a very small, flimsy piece of cheap plastic that I think is easily broken, should it go a few too many degrees in the wrong direction, and I think that the margin of error is pretty slim, though...just my thoughts!


I just think that its a good idea to know what lies ahead before you get into something, and also should you make a small mistake with something in there, the whole "logic board IS the computer" concept in the Alubooks makes for an expensive break...

Of course others will disagree, and that's fine, of course. I just thought that it would be good to hear a real scenario.

As for Apple, I was at the Apple store in Tokyo with him when he went to get it fixed, and mucking around in there will void out AppleCare for a PB. (They did give him a nice tape job, though )

 

[ImNoSuperMan]

As far as HDs, should you go through with it , Ive had good luck with Seagate.

I second seagate. Never tried any thing else actually.