Hard Drive Upgrade for Mac Mini PPC

Posted by Tith at 12 Jan 2009
Categories: Work, Gaming, Education, Computers-Internet, Social
Recently I posted how I upgraded the RAM on my Mac Mini. Well I guess I wasn't finished with the upgrade, shortly after the memory upgrade I got a unhappy mac logo flashing on the screen. The first though in my mind was the memory, so I did some diagnostics on the RAM module and it turned up good so I was slightly confused on what could have happened. After I put everything back together again I inserted the install disk for OSX 10.4 (thinking a screen with a press any button to boot from disk was going to appear) and nothing happened! I went to the apple site for some help since the manuals were of no help. I started a live chat session with a mac "expert" and they wouldn't touch my out of warranty POS. So I then went to scour the knowledge base and found only slight tid bits of information. I found help on the discussion forums. I narrowed the problem to my hard drive after find the goofy keyboard shortcuts that change the boot sequence. I bought a brand new 160gig hard drive and got the partition created and boom back up and running!

The upgrade to the hard drive on a Mini is only a few more steps to the memory upgrade I posted earlier. So I am going to refer to that post in order to open the case back up again.

Get what you need
  1. Your mini
  2. Razor blade
  3. Paint scraper
  4. Small screwdriver set
  5. A static shock bracelet (not shown)
  6. Long philips screwdriver
  7. A can of compressed air (it is pretty dirty in there)
  8. Alcohol (beer or anything harder)
To begin you need to open the case so read the previous post for that.

Next remove the three screws from the base that holds the DVD ROM and Hard Drive


There are two screws on each side of the piece of plastic which holds the hard drive on. You need to remove the system fan in and use a long neck philips screwdriver in order to access the screws on the opposite site.



Gently pull the hard drive forward, and not in an upward motion or you may bend the prongs. Also hold the connector board still while you pull the hard disk its pretty flimsy.



Slide the new one in and replace all the screws.







Replace the fan making sure the wires are wrapped back the same way before they were removed. There is a little lip the wires go around to prevent the wires from getting snagged.

Now before we place the drives back onto the motherboard, clear the PRAM first by removing the button sized battery. Leave it removed for about 30 seconds. (This may not be 100% neccessary but that step is what got my system booting from an install disc, I'll explain more later.)


Once you got the PRAM cleared put the battery back in, then snake the bluetooth and wireless antennas through the plastic holder. Place the wire through the slot on the board interface card. It is right next to the contacts.



Replace the three screws and your almost done. Now to reinstall OSX.

In my case I am running a G4 PPC with OSX 10.4 (Tiger) 10.5 should be the same steps, only the disk format is different if your running an Intel processor.

Have a wired usb keyboard and mouse  ready, and plug everything else that is necessary and power up.

Hold in the "C" key through the boot up screen and don't let go until after the little rotating gear whee disappears.

Then click on the Go on the top toolbar when it appears and choose disk utility.

Click the partition tab and set the size you want then click apply. You now have a volume to install onto.

*To install  you must have a valid install disk each install disk that is packaged is specialized for that model only.

Once everything is working fine and the volumes get a clean bill of health go a head put the top of the case back on.

Referene:

I will update these pictures shortly to help indicate direction and motion for clarity.









 

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