In case you haven’t heard – I recently bought a new Macbook Pro. It’s decked out with some pretty sweet stuff:
- 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
- 200 GB hard drive @ 7200 RPM (for video editing)
- 15-inch screen (not the glossy one, who needs that crap?)
- 4 GB RAM
- SuperDrive
Why did I update? Well, my old laptop, a 2004 12-inch Powerbook, pooped out after my cat Toddle decided to take the iSight camera’s magnet holder and drop it right on the hard drive. Magnets and hard drives . . . not a good combination. The new Mac arrived a few days later, so I never bothered with getting a new hard drive.
Turns out, though, that Best Buy had a Seagate 160 GB hard drive on sale for $43 and so I decided to reanimate my old Mac. Man, I love that thing. From a form factor perspective, it is much nicer than the huge Macbook Pro.
After getting the hard drive at Best Buy, I started to take apart the Powerbook. I had to do that once before, in January of 2006, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
This picture shows the dissected Powerbook. The toughest thing is getting the top part off the main case. There are some funky clips that hold the two shells together, so you have to be really careful and patient. (Not two of my best traits.)
The dead hard drive.
Since Apple uses about a gazillion screws to hold the laptop together, I had to make a little plan. Do the same.
The new hard drive came from Best Buy. Pretty cheap at $43. If your name is Torey, you should also think about replacing the hard drive. 
New and old – side by side. Mac OS X comes with a program called “Migration Assistant” and so I just copied all the data, settings, user accounts, cookies, and programs from the new Macbook Pro to the Powerbook. Yay.
