Hard Drive Upgrade for Powerbook G4

Any 3rd party (meaning a NON Apple Store) dealer who sells/services Macs should be able to sell you whatever size PATA drive you want for your 15" PowerBook. They should also be able to clone the contents of the drive from the old one (assuming it is still functional) to the new one. Shouldn't need an intermediate cloan at all.

As to how to do it yourself, I suspect there are plenty of take-apart sites out there that will show you how to disasemble your PowerBook and so on. Getting a drive enclosure will make it easy to cloan the contents of your old drive to the new one. I'd personally recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner but there are a lot of ways to get the data from old to new.

Unfortunately, the Apple Store(s) in your area cannot do what you ask with regards to the selling and installing of the replacement drive. For the most part, they don't sell repalcement parts over the counter and usually won't install a 3rd party part. Another issue that might prevent them from doing it (even if they wanted to or could otherwise) is the shear age of the machine. Once your computer is more then 5 years past the date it was discontinued by Apple, it is considered VINTAGE, once it gets 7 years out, it is OBSOLETE. In either case, the Apple Store can't order parts and doubtful it could even check the computer in for service.

It's not a tough thing to do what you are asking, so take heart.

This is what I'd do:

Scenario 1

1. Turn that new USB drive into a Time Machine disk
2. Backup your entire drive onto this TM disk
3. Install the new HDD in your PB
4. Boot off of your Snow Leo DVD
5. Restore the Snow Leo onto the new HD from TM instance
   I don't have the snow Leo DVD handy now, but one of the nenus allows you to restore the OS from TM disk, just look for it

Scenario 2

Or something similar

http://osxdaily.com/2009/09/02/install-snow-leopard-from-external-firewire-or-us b-hard-drive-or-how-to-upgrade-to-106-without-a-dvd-drive/

I've replaced the hard drives in several late model Powerbooks, and it is user doable. So lets start at the beginning .... it's great that you have a USB backup, however, you can't use that to boot your Powerbook. A Powerbook will only boot from a Firewire device. Here is one source for Firewire cases: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/ . If you can transfer the drive from your USB case to a Firewire case, you'll be all set (make sure the case will fit the hard drive ... either it's a 2.5" or 3.5" drive). The OWC cases mostly use Oxford chipsets, which work well with macs.

So, now you have a Firewire backup. You need to get data to it. Sounds like you have a program already to do that. I use SuperDuper! which is available from http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html .

Data is saved! New Parallel ATA (not Serial ATA or SATA) hard drive in hand (if not, I like Newegg.com as a good source for hard drives). One how to guide is located at http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-15-Inch-1-5-1-67-GHz-Ha rd-Drive-Replacement/345/1 and a video is located at http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/powerbookg4_al_hd_m/

Recommend you have a cupcake pan or cups or other containers to keep all the screws in. I use one yogurt cup for each step, so when they get to the end and they say to reverse the steps, you know where the tiny little screws all go. And consider buying a new small phillips head screwdriver, so you don't muck up those little phillips head slots.

If the guide/video's convince you not to do it yourself, typically Apple Authorized Service Providers will install hard drives. You can find the closest one at http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/ .