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mcheath
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: What HD in a Powerbook 520?

Recently bought a PB 520 for 20 bucks to play around with, it works well. I really wanted one of them back when they were new, but they were just too much money and I lived with an old Mac Portable in that era that I picked up for a few hundred. Anyway, I found an old Quantum Daytona Go Drive, DAY 127 AT, with no other info on it other than a date of 1994 on the cable. Will this drive work in the 520? The Quantum drive may have come from a Powerbook 150, if I recall, but didn't that use some sort of odd IDE drive? Looked and looked and could not find out what sort of internal HD connection the 500 series uses, SCSI or IDE or what? Anyone have the answers?

Powerbook Pismo 400, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 768 RAM, 120 Gig HD

Posted on Mar 22, 2008 7:27 PM

by Jan Hedlund,Solvedanswer
Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund
Level 6 (9,901 points)
A:
A PowerBook 520 uses a 2.5" SCSI hard drive. For more information, have a look at the documentation here. The PowerBook 150 has an IDE drive.

Jan

Posted on Mar 22, 2008 10:17 PM

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mcheath

Q: What HD in a Powerbook 520?

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  • by Jan Hedlund,Solvedanswer

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Mar 22, 2008 10:17 PM in response to mcheath
    Level 6 (9,901 points)
    Mar 22, 2008 10:17 PM in response to mcheath
    A PowerBook 520 uses a 2.5" SCSI hard drive. For more information, have a look at the documentation here. The PowerBook 150 has an IDE drive.

    Jan

  • by mcheath,

    mcheath mcheath Mar 22, 2008 11:19 PM in response to Jan Hedlund
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 22, 2008 11:19 PM in response to Jan Hedlund
    Thanks for the info. I then took the HD out of the 520 and sure enough it's marked SCSI by the connector. Pretty easy computer to get into and pull parts, I had to replace the floppy drive with another I had as the one the 520 came with would not read anything. The battery was pretty dead when I got it but after running the reconditioning software it's holding about an hour and fifteen minute charge. Nice little machine.

  • by Jan Hedlund,

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Mar 23, 2008 3:57 AM in response to mcheath
    Level 6 (9,901 points)
    Mar 23, 2008 3:57 AM in response to mcheath
    Hi,

    You are welcome. Yes, it is a nice computer. Unless already available, try to find a PCMCIA Expansion Module. With a CompactFlash memory card in a PC Card adapter for CF (e.g., here), you could easily transfer files to and from other machines. Another possibility is Ethernet (via an external AAUI-15 to RJ-45 transceiver).

    Jan