PowerBook G4 Aluminum 17" 1.67 GHz (High-Res) Hard Drive Replacement

Geschrieben von: Walter Galan

Kommentare: 11

PowerBook G4 Aluminum 17" 1.67 GHz (High-Res) Hard Drive Replacement

Schwierigkeitsgrad

Moderate

Schritte

Zeitaufwand

30 Minuten - 1 Stunde

Einleitung

Upgrade your hard drive for more storage space.

Werkzeuge

Ersatzteile

Schritt 1

Use your thumbs to push the two battery retaining tabs away from the battery.
The battery should pop up enough to rotate it toward yourself and lift it out of the lower case.

Schritt 2

Remove the three 2.3 mm Phillips screws securing the memory cover to the lower case.

Schritt 3

Lift the memory cover slightly and pull it toward yourself to remove it from the lower case.

Schritt 4

Remove the following ten screws:
Two 14.7 mm shouldered Phillips.
Three 12.3 mm Phillips.
One 3.8 mm T8 Torx.
One 6.8 mm T8 Torx.
Three 1.3 mm Phillips.

Schritt 5

The ZIF cable is located underneath the bottom RAM slot. If your PowerBook has both RAM slots occupied, make sure to remove the RAM chip.
Use your fingernails to separate the ZIF cable lock away from its socket. (Move the two brown bits down 1mm)
The ZIF cable lock will move about a millimeter away from the socket before it stops (see picture 2). Do not try to remove the ZIF cable lock.

The ZIF cable locks are the little grey pieces seen on the cable-side ends of the white bar. They will slide, as per detailed picture, toward the cable.

web -

Where could I get a whole replacement for this connector ? Mine came off the motherboard

Ruben De La Cruz - 24/10/20

Schritt 6

Use the tip of a spudger to slide the trackpad ribbon cable out of its socket.

Schritt 7

Remove the four 3.4 mm Phillips screws from the PC card side of the PowerBook.
When replacing these screws, you must reinstall each screw in the correct order. Begin by installing the screw closest to the display hinge, and go out from there.

Schritt 8

Remove the four 3.4 mm Phillips screws from the DVI connector side of the PowerBook.
When replacing these screws, you must reinstall each screw in the correct order. Begin by installing the screw closest to the display hinge, and go out from there.
During reassembly, make sure to reinstall the two screws on the right into their appropriate locations, and not the DVI port anchor holes.

Schritt 9

Depress the display latch release button and open your display.

Schritt 10

Starting near the display, lift the upper case straight up off the lower case, minding any cables that may get caught.

Sometimes the "tags"/"lugs" that are around the edge of the top & bottom frame, be careful not to bend them as when putting back the covers they will not merge. I used a screwdriver to poke through the hole the screw was supposed go in & push against the "inside nut" to let the tag from the top slide down between the 2 tags. The "inside nut" is like the one right next to the ribbon cable as shown in Dia.14. The screws are from Dia. 7&8.

harry allcock -

in what direction does one move the ZIF cable lock? what/where is its socket?

Ian -

When putting the machine back together (following steps in reverse), make sure the trackpad ribbon cable comes through the underside of the computer — there is an opening that the cable needs to go through and you will want to “thread the needle” with the cable before securing the upper case again.

Tim - 23/02/18

At the end of these instructions, Jimbo Combo also mentions this, but it should be repeated.

Because the trackpad/keyboard cable is part of the top face/keyboard/trackpad assembly, it’s actually a PITA when doing reassembly.

One way to make this step simple is to do the following:

1. straighten the Zif cable removing all of the bends that is probably has in it.

2. Start putting the top face/keyboard/trackpad assembly on, starting with the edge AWAY from the display.

3. Place the laptop on it’s side, and thread the cable through the opening, using tweezers if necessary so that it fully goes through the opening in the case.

4. Place the laptop back to the way it was and proceed.

ECJohansen - 06/05/21

Schritt 11

Use the flat end of a spudger to pry the sound card ribbon cable connector up off the logic board.
Move the sound card ribbon cable away from the face of the hard drive.
It is not necessary to disconnect the sound card ribbon cable from the sound card.

Schritt 12

Use the flat end of a spudger to pry the hard drive ribbon cable connector up off the logic board.

Schritt 13

Remove the following four screws:
Three 11.1 mm T8 Torx.
One 3.9 mm T8 Torx.
Lift the hard drive out of the lower case.

Schritt 14

Pull the hard drive cable straight away from the hard drive. It is helpful to wiggle the connector while pulling it away from the hard drive.
If you happen to bend the hard drive pins during removal, use the connector as a guide to bend them straight.

Schritt 15

Remove the two Phillips screws from the right side of the hard drive.
Pull the right hard drive bracket away from the hard drive.

Schritt 16

If necessary, peel the piece of tape holding the left hard drive bracket to the hard drive shield off the hard drive shield.
It is not necessary to completely remove this piece of tape.
Remove the two Phillips screws from the left side of the hard drive.
Pull the hard drive bracket away from the hard drive.

Schritt 17

Use the flat end of a spudger to separate the adhesive holding the hard drive shield on the hard drive.

Schritt 18

Pull the hard drive shield off the hard drive.

Abschluss

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Tinte & Feder

Walter Galan

685540 Reputation

5 Kommentare

When putting the keyboard back in, be sure to slip the Z ribbon through the slot so that it can be locked back in. Be sure that it is locked well.

Jimbo Combo -

Great guide. All in all, this is pretty easy but I've hit a snag with the hard drive. I have a PowerBook5,6 and a PowerBook5,9.

I want to simply transfer the actual hard drive from my older model to the 17" model. The SSD works fine in my 15" PowerBook but the 17" doesn't see it. It boots to a grey screen and stays there. When I boot from my Leopard install DVD, that works but Disk Utilities doesn't show a hard drive at all. I rechecked cables & attachments.

The 480GB SSD is formatted with Apple Partition Map and OS Extended Journaled. It works fine when I return it to the 15" and the 17" works fine with its IDE drive.

I thought this would be an easy swap. What might I be missing? What is different with the A1139?

Thanks.

jaesonk - 19/03/15

Not sure why, but my 17” PowerBook5,9 A1139 just doesn’t like the 480GB OWC Legacy Mercury Electra G3 SSDs. I did not try smaller OWC SSDs. I eventually found that KingSpec 512GB PATA/IDE SSD works fine on the first go. Previously, I was using a Western Digital Scorpion Blue 320GB, WD3200BEVE

I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my WD to the KingSpec, then checked and verified the KingSpec before disassembling the PowerBook and installing the new drive. I have two USB adapters for PATA/IDE drives. One uses a single connector, the other uses a 2nd USB connector for additional power. The KingSpec worked better with the dual USB connector adapter. With the single USB, the driver would intermittently disappear and only reappear if disconnected/reconnected.

As an additional note/suggestion, I keep a bootable harddrive back-up on an external firewire drive. This older PowerBookG4 won’t boot from a USB drive. Having a current back-up on an external bootable firewire drive comes in very handy.

JaesonK

jaesonk - 04/01/21

hi, do you use a genuine ssd with IDE connections or do you use an adapter ( like Renkforce etc) with mSata ? my powerbook only could recognize the mSata on my Renkforce adapter when I removed the little cable selector pin on the adapter. ( automatically master) After that it was recognized instantly.

Jamba -

Very nicely done, thank you. Would this instruction work for an PowerBook G4 Aluminum 17" 1.33 GHz model as well?

Thanks!

Hans Mueller - 08/07/16