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thickdrummer · Oct 7, 2007, 08:32 AM

Hope theres somebody out there who can help me.

I just upgraded my Powerbook G4 1.67Ghz HDD to a 100GB 7200RPM drive. I tried putting the installation disc in after I had finished, but nothing happened. Instead I plugged in an external firewire HDD and restored the internal HDD from that. Nothing I tried could get the recovery DVD to eject, single user mode, safe mode, open firmware, command line...nothing! DVD player was (and still is) saying there's no drive installed, as is the system profiler, but I could hear the disk spinning up, so is was obviously drawing power from the logic board via the ribbon connection.

Anyway, I took the whole laptop apart again, and opened up the superdrive to get my recovery disc out. I heard it close up and it still makes the familiar noises when I boot up, but it still isn't recognised!

Can anyone shed any light on this issue? With Leopard just around the corner, I really need my Superdrive up and running!

If I reinstall OS X using another mac, do you think it may recognise the superdrive again?

ibook_steve · Oct 7, 2007, 01:47 PM

It's getting power but not communicating with the machine. Unfortunately, you may have inadvertently damaged the optical ribbon cable. Try disconnecting it and reconnecting it to make sure you have good contact. You can start the machine with the top case off so you don't have to keep disassembling.

Steve

Waragainstsleep · Oct 7, 2007, 02:45 PM

You may also have damaged the ribbon cable for the HD. Check the jumper settings on the HD too, the last gen PowerBooks ran HD and optical from a single ATA bus. Not sure which is supposed to be master though, but if the new drive is jumpered to slave or CS, maybe it shouldn't be.

thickdrummer · Oct 7, 2007, 02:45 PM

Thanks for the tip, I will have a go at doing that tomorrow and post the results. I suppose I can always order a new ribbon cable. When I first installed the HDD I didnt even touch the Superdrive ribbon cable, which is what is confusing me!

ibook_steve · Oct 8, 2007, 01:20 AM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

You may also have damaged the ribbon cable for the HD. Check the jumper settings on the HD too, the last gen PowerBooks ran HD and optical from a single ATA bus. Not sure which is supposed to be master though, but if the new drive is jumpered to slave or CS, maybe it shouldn't be.

Portable drives do not have jumpers on them. The logic board they are connected to jumper across the ribbon for master/slave.

Steve

thickdrummer · Oct 8, 2007, 07:52 AM

Thanks for the help guys. It has been driving me insane!

As it turns out, I hadn't changed the jumper settings! I swear the thing was camouflaged! The ribbon cable doesn't actually cover all of the connectors, and I was sort of rushing so I forgot to check everything before I put it back together.

Just as a matter of interest to you both though, I noticed that not having the Superdrive configured correctly actually increased my battery life quite a bit. After the upgrade to Leopard, I'm considering taking it out altogether and putting it in a firewire enclosure.

Again, thanks to you both for the help, Im not actually a "fresh faced newbie" I guess we all make mistakes sometimes.

Waragainstsleep · Oct 8, 2007, 12:04 PM

Laptop drives do have jumpers as the previous post confirms. Only iBook cables have the jumper built in.