Can I put an internal powerbook drive into an enclosure?

February 27, 2007 7:22 AM

Can I stick my Powerbook internal drive into an external enclosure and get the data off it?

My powerbook's logic board is fried. Repair cost estimated at CDN$900 or so. Clearly not worth it. So, there is nothing wrong with the internal drive. I presume I can stick this in a USB enclosure.

1) What kind of enclosure do I need?

2) Will I be able to access the info on the drive from a PC or only another Mac?

(i didn't have any encrypted data though i did have a password for my user logon)

Thanks!

posted by modernnomad to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: Yes, you just need to get a 2.5" case for your drive. Firewire or USB will both work, and you won't need your password unless you're booting off the drive. Any OS X mac will mount it, but to use it on a PC you'll need software like Mac Opener.
posted by bcnarc at 7:26 AM on February 27, 2007

Best answer: Shouldn't be a problem.

Just get a 2.5" USB enclosure (around US$20).

Mac - no problem. PC, you'll need something along the lines of MacDrive
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 7:27 AM on February 27, 2007

Response by poster: Damn that was fast!

Thanks to both of you...
posted by modernnomad at 7:36 AM on February 27, 2007

I'd recommend getting something above the lowest-priced 2.5" drive cases. The cheap ones often require an external AC power adapter or come with some hinky USB cable with two connectors on one end to rob extra power from a second USB port because they lack the proper circuitry to handle the power draw of drive spin-up on the standard power available from a single USB port.
posted by xiojason at 9:22 AM on February 27, 2007

Alternately, if you have a desktop computer handy with a spare bay, and you don't care about having a portable hard drive around permanently, you could just pick up a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter and stick the laptop's hard drive into a desktop. (If it's a PC, you'll need Macdrive, if it's Linux or an IDE-based Mac, though, you're all set.)

You can get the adapters at CompUSA, I think.

Anyway, not necessarily advocating that as a better option than a FireWire box, just a different one.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:02 PM on February 27, 2007

This one is a bit more expensive than some out there, but it does both USB 2.0 and Firewire, is trivial to assemble, and has good heat sucking capabilities. I recently had to take a drive out of a powerbook with a fried motherboard, and got this one, and I love it.
posted by raf at 4:57 PM on February 27, 2007

I will second any recommendation about Other World Computing's products. I've bought several enclosures from them, and they've all been totally solid.
posted by 40 Watt at 7:25 AM on February 28, 2007