Need for speed: Cracking open a PowerBook 17

By Ken Mingis

February 17, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - OK, I admit it. When it comes to computers, I'm pretty much all about speed. If I can get the latest and fastest (insert Apple product here), I will. A year ago, that meant snagging one of the first 1-GHz PowerBook G4 17-in. models. These days, it means buying the updated 1.33-GHz PowerBook 17. Price: $2,999.
I was lucky enough to get one of the first of the first-generation 1-GHz models last March, gladly picking it up at a local Apple store when they finally hit the market (see story). It was and remains an excellent, trouble-free laptop. But after Apple Computer Inc. bumped the processor speed on the PowerBook to 1.33 GHz last fall, it was no longer king of the laptop hill.
So just before Thanksgiving, I moved to the newer model, ordering a stock configuration with the 4,200-rpm 80GB hard drive. Although Apple offers a faster hard drive on its PowerBook (a 60GB 5,400-rpm version), I was already eyeing an even faster 7,200-rpm alternative from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, better known as the Travelstar 7K60. I'd read reports online from owners who had cracked open their PowerBooks and, with the precision of surgeons, replaced the stock hard drive with the faster one from Hitachi. All reported notable speed increases, solid performance, little if any increase in heat and silent performance.
It meant giving up 20GB of storage space, a trade I was willing to make.
Those helpful PowerBook owners pointed to Kodawarisan's Web site (in Japanese), where step-by-step instructions (with pictures) lay out how to do the exchange. Since the operation is no longer considered a user-replaceable move by Apple, you risk voiding your warranty if you cause any damage to the inner workings of your PowerBook while you're under the hood.
Do I read Japanese? No. But you can use AltaVista.com's Babel Fish service to translate the text, and the pictures themselves give you a good idea of what's in store. Most said the job could be done, if you're patient and careful, in 45 minutes to an hour.
To be on the safe side, I also found a service manual online detailing how to open up the PowerBook 17. It came in very handy, since it offered a slightly different method for doing the job. And it had pictures.


The Powerbook 17 before the hard drive replacement. That's the new drive sitting above where the old one is.

Having replaced a couple of hard drives in Apple's previous-generation Titanium PowerBooks, I figured I could handle

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