[niacin]

Hello,

Want to upgrade my puny 6.0Gb Pismo 400 harddisk.. Is it true that i can just buy any notebook harddisk to do the job?

Theoretically, just have to buy the new harddisk, boot up from the CD, install the OS, that's it right?

thanx in advance.

ps. why is it that when i Get Info on my Harddisk, it says i only have 5.59Gb of harddisk space, when my harddisk is 6Gb?

[ddiokno]

You have the procedure correct... it is very simple to upgrade the hard drive. A good source for Hard Drives is Other World Computing ( http://www.macsales.com ). Also, I believe there are some good sales on 20 GB drives... I think I just saw them on http://www.dealmac.com If it is not in the current days deals, do a search, but I'm almost positive I saw them yesterday for around$150.
dave

[This message has been edited by ddiokno (edited 02-17-2001).]

[niacin]

thanks ddiokno
i have another question
how can i transfer and format the info from my old harddrive in the most efficient manner?

[ddiokno]

In my opinion, the best way to do this is by:
1) Booting off your CD,
2) Copying your hard drive (drag the icon) to an external Hd (such as a firewire
3) Installing your new Hard drive
4) Install the System software, and do all software updates
5) Copy all of your applications back to their original place on your hard drive (for example, your old desktop should have been copied to a folder called "desktop folder" in your "Macintosh HD" folder (copy of old hard drive) -- the caveat here is that some of your applications might require a re-install from the oiginal installers.
6) This is the messy part- go into your old system folder and copy any of your preferences from the thrid party applications that you have installed... also might want to look for preferences to location manager, tcp/ip, etc. Also, there are going to be extensions, control panels, and several other miscellaneous things that you might want to copy.
There isn't a problem with booting from a CD and copying your system folder and all apps directly from the firewire drive, but I find that sometimes you lose a little integrity from the installed files, it is always best to reinstall if you can...
This is the procedure that I followed when I moved my files from my Pismo to Titanium (I had a 30 GB drive in my Pismo, and I wanted to make sure that the system was correct for ti TiBook, so I backed up everything, wiped the HD, did G4 TiBook software restore, then followed my procedures listed above)...
hope this helps
dave

[tooki]

Originally posted by niacin:
ps. why is it that when i Get Info on my Harddisk, it says i only have 5.59Gb of harddisk space, when my harddisk is 6Gb?

It's the discrepancy between binary and decimal thousands. In decimal, 1000MB make 1GB, in binary, 1024MB make 1GB. So if you calculate the capacity into bytes (B):
6GB
x1000=6,000MB
x1000=6,000,000KB
x1000=6,000,000,000B

6000000000B/1024=5,859,375KiB
/1024=5,722.05MiB
/1024=5.59GiB

(notes: The "i" in the KiB, MiB and GiB denote proper binary calculation of a disk capacity. The Apple System Profiler is smart, and gives you both figures)

If you want more details on this, look at the marvelous hard disk guide on www.pcguide.com . It's a bit PC-centric when it comes to file systems and whatnot, but 90% of the information is platform-independent.

tooki

[niacin]

This is great!
but how do you format a harddisk in MacOS? never had this experience before since switching platforms 6 months ago..

[ddiokno]

Originally posted by niacin:
This is great!
but how do you format a harddisk in MacOS? never had this experience before since switching platforms 6 months ago..

startup with the system disk (restart holding the "c" key down) and then use drive set-up (inside the utilities folder).

[milhaus]

Having just bought a IBM 20 GIG for $152 from OtherWorldComputing, I now find a price of $146 from TransIntl, with cheaper shipping to Canada (19 instead of 22). So for me, that would have been a savings of about 10 USD, or about $100CDN. But I'll bet you can't beat the $5 FedEx from OWC.
Good Deal. (they're $500 in Toronto retail stores!!)

[PeteWK]

Hi. The reason for the usable space being smaller than the advertised is that the drive reserves some of itself to store resident operation commands and info.

As for the place to pick one up? Check out pbsource.com (how do I make the html thing work on Explorer 5?). They have a search engine for memory and hard drives.

And as for the type of drive: I've had good luck with Toshiba and I've had to have an IBM replaced. But then if you ask the next guy, he's probably had just the opposite experience. Hard drives are like that, I'm afraid.

PeteWK

talking about hds for powerbooks...

does anyone have experiences regarding the loudness/noisyness of 2,5inch hds? meyne always became louder and louder over time.

thanx - kai+

[niacin]

my original 6gb from apple is noisy as hell
in the still of the night, that's all you here in the background..
but oh well... what to do?