I swear that these 12-inch PowerBooks are like stray kittens following me home. This is number three for me.
There's a cool little surplus store in Kingston, New York that I like to hit any time I'm there. This time around, I found a 12-inch PowerBook G4 that needed a little TLC. With no power supply and no way to test it before I left, the stickers on it saying "Mac G5 Needs O.S." gave me hope that it would at least power up. That and the poor spelling of "Butiful" and "Conpooter".
I brought it home and proceeded to dig out a power supply from one of the other two 12-inch PowerBooks. Pressing the power button resulted in a boot chime. I could hear a hard drive that was in it's creaky death throws and was not going to yield anything good. To remedy that, I bought an IDE enclosure that accepts the 60GB m.2 SSD I bought.
I packed up the laptop and brought it with me it on vacation. I like little projects like that while hanging out at the shore house at night. With a YouTube video playing on my 2012 MacBook Air, I followed along and was able to disassemble the machine and replace the hard drive with my SSD concoction. Sadly, I left the power supply at home so testing it would have to wait until I got back from vacation.
Back at home, my night in front of the TV watching tech videos on YouTube included a little "me" time with the little PowerBook. I was able to successfully add a 1GB stick of RAM. The first stick I tried resulted in the computer freezing on boot. The second stick worked flawlessly. It was time to install an OS.
I grabbed my burned copy of 10.5. Installation went well. The computer worked quite nicely. It was time to try Sorbet Leopard. I downloaded it onto my MacBook Air and then transferred it to a FireWire hard drive. From there, I booted the computer off the 10.5 install disc, reformatted the SSD, and restored the Sorbet Leopard installation onto the PowerBook. I fell asleep on the couch.
The next day, I was able to check the PowerBook. Sorbet Leopard got put onto the laptop with no ill effects.
With the hard part out of the way (will it work after I get my huge mitts inside that laptop) it was time to turn to the stickers. I smothering of the laptop with Goo Gone made quick work of the stickers. I drop a bunch of Goo Gone all over the stickers. In about an hour, they'll peel right off. If not, they're easily removed with a plastic spudger.
I now have the laptop sitting next to me on a coffee table. Although the batter is completely shot, the little guy is a cool addition to the other three PowerBooks. Like I need them.
Enjoy the images!
There's a cool little surplus store in Kingston, New York that I like to hit any time I'm there. This time around, I found a 12-inch PowerBook G4 that needed a little TLC. With no power supply and no way to test it before I left, the stickers on it saying "Mac G5 Needs O.S." gave me hope that it would at least power up. That and the poor spelling of "Butiful" and "Conpooter".
I brought it home and proceeded to dig out a power supply from one of the other two 12-inch PowerBooks. Pressing the power button resulted in a boot chime. I could hear a hard drive that was in it's creaky death throws and was not going to yield anything good. To remedy that, I bought an IDE enclosure that accepts the 60GB m.2 SSD I bought.
I packed up the laptop and brought it with me it on vacation. I like little projects like that while hanging out at the shore house at night. With a YouTube video playing on my 2012 MacBook Air, I followed along and was able to disassemble the machine and replace the hard drive with my SSD concoction. Sadly, I left the power supply at home so testing it would have to wait until I got back from vacation.
Back at home, my night in front of the TV watching tech videos on YouTube included a little "me" time with the little PowerBook. I was able to successfully add a 1GB stick of RAM. The first stick I tried resulted in the computer freezing on boot. The second stick worked flawlessly. It was time to install an OS.
I grabbed my burned copy of 10.5. Installation went well. The computer worked quite nicely. It was time to try Sorbet Leopard. I downloaded it onto my MacBook Air and then transferred it to a FireWire hard drive. From there, I booted the computer off the 10.5 install disc, reformatted the SSD, and restored the Sorbet Leopard installation onto the PowerBook. I fell asleep on the couch.
The next day, I was able to check the PowerBook. Sorbet Leopard got put onto the laptop with no ill effects.
With the hard part out of the way (will it work after I get my huge mitts inside that laptop) it was time to turn to the stickers. I smothering of the laptop with Goo Gone made quick work of the stickers. I drop a bunch of Goo Gone all over the stickers. In about an hour, they'll peel right off. If not, they're easily removed with a plastic spudger.
I now have the laptop sitting next to me on a coffee table. Although the batter is completely shot, the little guy is a cool addition to the other three PowerBooks. Like I need them.
Enjoy the images!
glad you’re having success with yours. I always had a love/hate relationship with that connector that connects the top case to the logic board on the 12” PowerBook. Such a little pain in the butt in an otherwise well designed PowerBook haha 