Is there any way to start up a PowerBook with no battery of power (via FireWire and 2nd Mac?) ?

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Level 1

4 points

Is there any way to start up a PowerBook with no battery of power (via FireWire and 2nd Mac?) ?

I am wondering if there is a way to power up my old PowerBook 17" Model No. A1052. At some stage it must have recieved a knock or been dropped and the power socket on the side is dented in and will no longer take power from the mains adaptor. I have tried to remove the back so I could realign the power socket, but one of the screws was...well, screwed and would not come out. The battery is also dead. I thought there was maybe a way to get it going via FireWire from another Mac in target mode, but this didn't work. I would be grateful for any help as I need to get some data from this old beast before it takes its final trip to Mac Elysium...

Thank you in great anticiption....

PowerBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Model Number A1052

Posted on Aug 15, 2012 4:03 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Knucklesmac

Level 4

2,240 points

Aug 15, 2012 5:43 AM in response to panoranik

Hello,

Sadly there is no other way to power your PowerBook other than mains via the power adapter or battery.

I don't even think you could get your data off the drive via FireWire without some power to the PowerBook.

The only thing I could suggest is recharging the battery using an external charger, which can be brought cheaply on some auction sites. Then if you was to spend money on doing that, it may well be better to have the DC inboard replaced to fix the broken socket issue.

If it was me I'd take the case off to remove the hard drive. Use an external caddy to remove data.

If the screws wont come off due to the heads being rounded, then they would have to be drilled using a very small fine drill peace.

Best of Luck

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Answer 2

a brody

Level 10

82,941 points

Aug 15, 2012 8:48 AM in response to panoranik

http://www.macsales.com/ sells to the UK the necessary caddy for Parallel ATA 2.5" hard drives (Powerbooks do not have SATA compatibility). Note if hooking up to a Mac with 10.7 or later, you may not be able to run the old applications. If you rely on older documents which haven't been updated to Intel Mac compatible formats, you may be better off getting a used or refurbished Mac that still has PowerPC compatibility, before moving to the newer Mac.

http://www.apple.com/usergroups/ can often help you find people with older Macs. See these user tips for resources for connecting to updated systems:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2465 - for 10.7 Lion.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3761 - for 10.8 Mountain Lion.

And my FAQ* for used and refurbished Macs:

http://www.macmaps.com/usedrefurbished.html

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