Swapping circuit boards for an internal hard drive
My story may be a bit long and roundabout, so please try and bear with me as I explain.
My PowerMac G5 is 4.5 years old and over the past few months, the DVD and my secondary internal hard drive, both the originals that came with my computer, have been slowly dying. I finally replaced the DVD drive the other day and was little by little copying the data off my secondary internal drive before it completely failed. One thing that seemed to help the internal drive run more smooth was unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in. A worker at an Apple store's Genius Bar also suggested swapping each internal drive to the bay that the other was originally in, to see if that helped at all.
Anyways, in the end, the drive was giving me so much trouble and I had unplugged/plugged the power cable so many times that eventually the part of the circuit board that holds the pin connectors straight broke off, so now I had no way to get my data off the slowly failing drive. Another visit to the Genius Bar and I was told that the drive was as good as done, but not wanting to believe that the majority of my film projects were gone forever, I contacted a store across the street from my old NYU dorm called Digital Society. They told me that the circuit board on the drive needed to be replaced and that the new board had to be taken from an identical drive. I soon realized that the primary/system drive of my G5 was in fact identical. So, after running Time Machine, purchasing new primary and secondary internal drives, re-installing the OS and doing a Time Machine restore - which was flawless - I took my two drives back to Digital Society where they swapped the circuit boards rather quickly.
Now that I'm back home, I was easily able to recover all my data from my failing drive... only after having its circuit board replaced, the drive is showing no signs whatsoever of the read/write difficulties and failures that it had been showing prior to the circuit board swap, which leads me to a few questions
a) Was it really the drive that had a problem, or the circuit board itself? Is there anywhere I could buy just a circuit board without having to buy a new drive just to get a circuit board? The drives in question are 400 gig Hitachi Deskstar, model #HDS724040KLSA80. While I'm not entirely sure the once failing drive should be trusted again, my old system drive - which now has a busted circuit board on it - still works perfectly fine.
b) If I'm able to get a new circuit board, how easy is it to replace myself? The guy at Digital Society did it very quickly and for a price of $120. Are there any video tutorials?
Thanks!
Lot's of good question Will,
Hard drives are not what they used to be, if your work is important I'd replace them every 3 years & have 2 backups in the meantime.
I doubt you can get the circuit boards separate without buying a while questionable drive.
If I'm able to get a new circuit board, how easy is it to replace myself? The guy at Digital Society did it very quickly and for a price of $120.
1 TB 3 year warranty $99...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HD103SJ/
1 TB 7 year warranty...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HE103UJ/
More cheaper drives...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/3.5-SerialATA/WesternDigitalCaviar
Similar Messages
-
Looking for replacement internal hard drives for a MacPro
Looking to replace internal hard drives in a MacPro. Was thinking about 3TB. Any recommendations?
Look in System Report for the link speed available. (Mine says 3 Gigabit.) Get drives with at least that speed; going beyond that won't get you any more performance.
-
Maximum size for the internal hard drive
I have an Intel based 24" Imac. As soon as my Apple care runs out I want to replace the internal hard drive with something larger. Does anyone have information on the maximum size I can install?? I currently have 320gb, but am looking to increase to 1tb but I don't know if my Mac can handle it.
1TB will definitely work as this was even a build to order option when it was for sale. I'm pretty sure as long as you're not using FAT32 whatever size you put in should be compatible.
-SM -
Best Choice For Second Internal Hard Drive
Hello, all...
I currently have a second internal hard drive (170 GB) and want to replace it with a larger one. Do you know what the best choice of manufacturer is for internal hard drives. The one I have now is a Maxtor. I'm looking to replace the 170 GB with a 500 GB.
Thank you!
DW
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.10) Tiger, 2.5 GHz, 2 GB DDR SDRAM, 2nd Internal Drive 170 GBHi-
Maxtor are good but so are Western Digital and Seagate. I have one of each.
The folowing has a good performance review of 500gb drives from the three makers:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200607/500_1.html
Based on that, and others on the forums will agree, Western Digital is currently the better choice.
G4AGP(450)Sawtooth, 2ghz PowerLogix, 2gbRAM, RaptorSATAATA, ATI Radeon 9800 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Pioneer DVR-109, 23" ACD, Ratoc USB 2.0, QCam Ultra, Nikon Coolscan -
Looking for fast internal hard drive
I want to replace the existing hard drive in my iBook G4 with a faster one (7200 rpm). I realize the battery time will suffer. Does anybody have any specific recommendations (as to which brand)?
Thanks.Most of the newer specifications of modern drives I've seen are
for the SATA type of hard disk drives now common in new Macs.
Since these won't work inside an older model, you still may find
some PATA/ATA/IDE compatible drives from the same manufact-
urers and through vendors of Mac specific or compatible hardware.
{Of major brands, sometimes you can find a similar spec HDD
in their line-up that is almost as good as their new SATA line;
here's a page with some that won't work in your iBook, but they
do have names and the manufacture brand. They may offer ATA:
http://www.barefeats.com/note03.html }
The slower spinning drive, may be fine; get one with a larger buffer
and enough free space so the system and applications have plenty
of room for Virtual Memory demands, and make sure the basic RAM
amount is as much as the machine can support.
Some of the newer replacement PATA drives use less power and
have better technologies than those older models in early Macs.
So, if you can find actual reviews and specifications for side-by-side
comparisons (of non-SATA vs other non-SATA) for your application,
that may give you an idea if the faster-spin rate drive is an advantage
you could live with; or something best left for another year's upgrade
when you eventually may get a newer architecture portable Macintosh.
I'd go for the 5400 slower drive, large capacity, with larger 16+ MB buffers,
instead of a faster 7200 drive, in a portable computer on limited batteries.
But I've read of others who did OK by the faster drive. Not sure if they stuck
with original equipment batteries or were able to actually gain run time with
those newer technology batteries which say they have a longer life. Of the
new batteries, you may need to get their brand of reconditioner/recharger
in order to hope to get their longer specified battery life; & charge two at a
time outside of the computer; making sure to calibrate and run them all often.
Good luck & happy computing!
edited. -
Slow write to internal hard drive
The write speeds for my internal hard drive on my iMac are painfully slow (under 1 MB/s) for all kinds of files; whenever I am moving files the entire system would become unresponsive. I did not have this problem when I was running tiger; when I installed leopard it took an unusually long time (5 hrs or so), which I thought was strange but decided not to trouble myself over.
I tried to erase the partition and zero the disk from disk utility on the OS X install CD and it said it would take 24 hours, then disk utility crashed. I tried again from my iBook with the imac as a target disk and the same problem occurred.
I am reinstalling leopard now (having erased but not zeroed the disk) and it says it will take 12 hours (it has already been running for an hour).
The SMART status is "verified" but I think the problem may be the hard drive itself. When the system was running, writing to an external disk was perfectly fast.
Does anyone have any ideas? Firmware update, disk controller software update, etc.? I can't find anyone else with the same problem.Funny thing is I was suffering the same problem on my 24" iMac for the past month or so.. of course after the first year warranty was expired.
24" iMac, 2.16Ghz C2D, 2Gb Ram, 250Gb WD HDD, 7600GT
OSX was going terribly slow, but kept working and I wasn't sure what the problem was right away. After a watching the Activity Monitor I also noticed the HDD on my iMac was suffering from horrible write speeds.. read was fine but writing.. well the HDD was dying.
I went out this morning and bought myself a new 500Gb Seagate with the 32Mb cache to replace my the trusty Western Digital in the iMac.. came home, busted out the philips screwdriver and Torx-8 opened her up and replaced the drive myself. It took under an hour and was a pretty painless process. Once the new drive was installed I restored from a TimeMachine backup and wham bam she was done!
Anyone with good PC assembly knowledge should be able to replace the drive on their own, just find a guide on the net and follow the instructions. The key is to take your time as its not as simple as removing a panel off a PowerMac or PC and swapping the drive.. there is a lot more patience to it since your dealing with such a confined space and other components. But I took my time and cleaned out the cooling system inside my iMac while I was at it.. overall it turned out okay and i'm happy with the performance upgrade on the drive with the larger cache.
I should note, if your iMac is in warranty or your reluctant to open it up yourself (i don't blame you!) just take your Mac into a authorized repair centre and i am sure they would be happy to help replace the drive for a small fee. I on the other hand prefer to save a few bucks and use the money on buying a better drive, plus it was fun to do! -
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009) - Maximum internal hard drive size and speed?
What is the maximum size of hard drive and speed for an internal hard drive to my Macbook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009), please?
I bought myself a Technics 1TB, 7200 rpm internal hardrive. Made a clone successfully in Super Duper.
It fits, but It is not available for starting up my Macbook Pro. Not available in System Prefs, but visible and grey in Disc Utility.
Although it starts up my Mac Pro just fine.. but not my Macbook Pro.
Is there a limit of hard drive specifics?
What is the maximum size of hard drive and speed for an internal hard drive to my Macbook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009), please?Thanks for the reply
I cloned the Technics HDD ( 2,5" HGST Travelstar 7K1000 - 1 TB : HTS721010A9E630) from the MBP.
I tried to boot it up with my Technincs ( 2,5" HGST Travelstar 7K1000 - 1 TB : HTS721010A9E630) installed in my MBP (as my internal hard drive). -
What internal hard drive is compatible with Macbook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)?
I live in India. I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012). My Macbook crashed 3 days ago. Apple said the internal hard disk needed replacement. They gave me two options.
1. They get a new hard drive replaced from Apple for 12000 INR (280$),
or 2. If you find it expensive, you can buy an internal hard disk from sources other than Apple and we will fix it in for you.
I have decided to go with option 2, because option 1. is not feasible for me!
Now my question is,
What type of internal hard disk should I buy?
or
What are the specifications for the internal hard drive that must be met to suit my MBP?
Getting my internal hard disk replaced is something I've never done before.
I have a MBP, (13-inch, Mid 2012 model)Here you go:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-1TB-MQ01ABD100-HDKBB96A1A01-2-5-5400RPM-Laptop-N otebook-9-5mm-HDD-/171120091488?pt=US_Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item27d78d6 160
Or same on amazon.com
Ive installed same on several 2012 Macbook Pro, same HD as used by Apple themselves -
When I run Disk Utility it reports a S.M.A.R.T. status of: Failing for my internal hard drive. I have backed everything up to an external hard drive and am using it as my boot drive. I'm thinking of replacing my internal drive. I was told that I will need to replace it with a 5400 RPM drive. Is this true, or can I replace it with a 7200 RPM drive? Also what is the maximum capacity with which I can replace my internal hard drive? Is there anything else I need to watch for when I get it replaced?
Thanks in advance,
tregarth7200 would be fine in your computer, but without having an altra ata/133 card inside you are limitied potentially to the 128GB size as was stated. I have heard that there are solftware solutions to this problem if you are interested in putting a larger than 128gb HD in. Another thing is the fact of actually installing the HD, while it is possible to tackle it yourself there are some serious downsides if you do not get the thing back together correctly and with the right amount of torque and thermal paste on the heat sinks...
-
Formatting Internal Hard Drive
I've been told that I should use Disk Utility to erase my internal hard drive before I restore it from a cloned copy on my external hard drive. When I open Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD, then click Erase, it asks me to choose a "Volume Format." I assume I should just go with the default setting, Mac OS Extended. But I was advised to format my external hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
So I did a little research. It sounds like Journaled is preferred because it helps prevent corruption...but it apparently also impedes performance somewhat - I guess. Then I learned that you can use Disk Utility to Enable or Disable Journaling.
In summary, I'm more confused than ever. For my internal hard drive (Macintosh HD), should I choose Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? And after I get my computer up and running again, is it OK to enable and disable journaling on my main hard drive? What would I actually accomplish by doing so?
Thanks.Hi David Blomstrom;
When journaling was implemented in OS X, I did some testing to find out exactly how much of a performance hit it would cause. After some fairly extensive testing I discovered the performance hit for journaling was significantly less then the variability in the test. Or to say it another way I was unable to detect it. It was that small. After those test I tend to use it just about everywhere. That small of a penalty is worth the protection it gives in my opinion.
Allan -
i have 3tb seagate goflex external hard drive.its brand new in package.i took it out of case and deleted partitions that were created by manufacturer.so now i have 2800 gigs.its formatted ntfs.will it work for late 2010 27" imac internal hard drive replacement.i found a apple repair place that will charge me 50$ to swap drives for me assuming i have the drive.i will have to install leopard myself at this price.i dont want to have to pay for anything other than the swap.will this hard drive work with this format or do i need to format it differently.
Hello
formatted ntfs
NTFS format not work on mac system , need to be formatted as Extended Mac os Journaled format and partition table need to be GUID
how to do that in video
HTH
Pierre -
2009 MBP can't see internal hard drive - for the second time!
Well, my 2009 13" MBP is at Applecare for the second time because it cannot recognize _any_ internal hard drive.
The first repair came at 9 months (purchased new), now 16 months later I have the same issue.
Swap in a known good drive, it can't see it, boot from DVD, and run Disk Utility, it can't see it either (optical drive shows up fine)
My first repair only said they replaced the original hard drive, has anyone else had the issue of losing access to your internal hard drive?
Ugh, I will be out of the 3 year Applecare next summer, and don't want to get stuck with another iBook G3, if you know what I mean.
Thanks for any feedback!Hi
I have the same issue, I have a Vodafone branded Huawei HG556a with an external drive connected. I have found that it isn't possible to connect via Finder and that SMB doesn't work either. The only way I could connect to it was via FTP using Cyberduck (or Filezilla), but no use as I can't add my media files from the drive to iTunes, so unfortunately disappointing. I'm still looking, but here's the document I was referred too from another forum.
broadband.vodafone.ie/download/files/storage_mac.pdf
Although not an answer to your question, hopefully this will give you an idea why you are getting the password and username errors when you know they are correct. In the end when I entered the FTP details into Cyberduck I was able to connect.
I know this doesn't help solve the problem (as I'm still looking too), but at leas you know why (ish).
Cheers
Topes -
New internal Hard Drive for my Ibook G4 (March 2005); Panther 10.3.9
Hi there,
hope I'm not posting a post which is already answered, but couldn't find any appriopriate one.
The thing is I want to buy a bigger HDD for my lovely Ibook. Questions:
1) I looked in "about this MAC" and found out, that it should be an ATA drive. Is that correct? Or can I use some other drives types as well? Can I use Ultra ATA to speed up the whole ship?
2) At what else, when buying, should I pay attention?
3) Is it advisable to buy a used hard drive, or would you strongly disadvise?
4) Any brands, types you would suggest (I'm thinking about some nice 60-80gbs)?
5) After buying, is it possible to make a 1:1 copy from the old one to the new one, so that I don't have to install everything again from the beginning?
6) New ibooks are shipped with this Sudden Motion Sensor, which helps protecting the HDD. Is it possible, to have this one too?
Thanks for all the help and response,
and sorry if there is a post with the same matter already
Peter (Piotr)
iBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.3.9) 768 RAM, 30GBHi iMaster,
1 - Apple uses Ultra ATA hard drives.
2 - RPM (Revolution Per Minute) I use a 5400RPM in my internal and a 7200RPM for my external. The 7200RPM hard drive I believe run hotter then the 5400RPM. You will need a hard drive that is 2.5" wide X 9.5mm tall. I believe IDE and ATA interfaces are the same.
3 - I wouldn't buy a used hard drive because it may not last as long as a new one. Using a hard drive usually eats away at the life span.
4 - Toshiba, Hitachi, Seagate, or IBM. You may want to look at iFixit.com for iBook compatible hard drives.
5 - Yes, you will need to backup your iBook (on to an external drive, whether a external hard drive, iPod, computer, etc. I suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner. You may want to look at Macworld: Take Control of Mac OS X Backups and Knowledge Base Document #106941 which has examples on How to back up and restore your files.
6 - AMS (Apple Motion Sensor, Mobile Motion Module, or Sudden Motion Sensor) is an sensor that is integrated into the logic board. It is not a hard drive feature.
To be honest with you, I don't really recommend upgrading your internal hard drive. Do you still have an outstanding warranty on your iBook? You do realize that replacing the hard drive will void Apple's One (1) Year Limited Warranty, unless they are an AASP. If you would like hear more, let us know.
Jon
Macbook 2.0 White (100Gb HD 2Gb RAM) Mac Mini 1.42Ghz, iPod (All), Airport (Graphite & Express), G4 1.33Ghz iBook, G4 iMac 1Ghz, G3 500Mhz, iBook iMac 233Mhz, eMate, Power Mac 5400 LC, PowerBook 540c, Macintosh 128K, Apple //e, Apple //, and some more... Mac OS X (10.4.5) Moto Razr, iLife '06, SmartDisk 160Gb, Apple BT Mouse, Sight.. -
I currently have a mbp 2.3 gighuz intel core 7 16 gig of ram with two internal hard drives ( took super drive out) which for a video editor like myself is a dream I can edit video anywhere, my question can I order a new mbp with 2 internal flash drives?
I wouldn't think so because the newer ones with Retina displays don't have an internal SuperDrive that can be replaced. Therefore the newer logic boards wouldn't have the two SATA/SATA Express connections on the logic board.
At least that was the case as of 2012. I've seen newer ones and they also don't have a SuperDrive. -
I have a late 2012 iMac with an I5 precessor running OSX 10.8.5 and a 1tb internal hard drive. I keep losing access to the internal hard drive/startup disk.
I can reboot and everything operates as normal for a few minutes or hours but then I lose all access again to anything on the hard drive. The computer is still up and running but no files can be accessed and certain websites cannot be acessed even though internet access appears to be normal. Disk utility can only find permission errors related to iTunes which can be repaired only to come back at the next scan (I would not think permission errors would have anything to do with the hard drive crashing). It does not seem to matter what program I am using at the time access is lost and it can lose access sometimes right after reboot when no program is running.You will need to boot into the Recovery Volume (command - R on a restart or hold down the option/alt key during restart and select it) to run Disk Utility/Disk Repair.
Maybe you are looking for
-
Iscsitarget installation fails on Windows 2008 R2 server
Dear All We have windows 2008 Server which is also DC server. I am trying to install iscsitarget utility which I downloaded from Microsoft site. I want to configure the server as iscsi target and map the disk space to another server as disk volume. T
-
"Run Scripts" giving a problem to create portal domain
Hello All. I am new to weblogic portal development. Was trying to create my basic sample portal in weblogic_portal_10.3.4 with the help of documentation. I am getting in running scripts when I was creating the domain. I have followed the below steps,
-
Hi experts, If I want to create credit memo only after return delivery has been PGR, is it proper to make credit memo create with reference to return delivery? You know, SAP standard is to create this kind of credit memo with reference to return orde
-
Printing to PDF creates document with only part of the printout, improperly sized
I am printing from a windows application with my Adobe Acrobat Standard 10.1.9, and when it prints (to a standard Portrait size document), only about 25% of the document appears in the PDF, as if I had told it to zoom in on the document. I want the P
-
Does SBO support OS other than windows?