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The Macintosh Powerbook 140 was an early Apple Laptop computer. It features a large power cable, battery, trackball instead of a trackpad, was one of the first Apple computers to use an internal floppy disk, and adjustable keyboard height. It was also the first laptop to feature a keyboard toward the back of the computer unit.

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How do I fix my hard drive?

I've had an old Apple PowerBook 140 for some time now. It was prety dead when I got it.

My goal was to get it back in good working order with as many of the original parts as possible so I could view/retrieve the files on the computer. I did a number of repairs by buying some PowerBook 100 series computers on eBay that had compatible parts.

Overtime I replaced all the components I thought could have issues, however I ended up with an issue wherein the computer would turn on, the screen would flash, and it would shut off. Through some testing, I found that the computer worked perfectly using a hard drive from one of the eBay powerbooks, but would not work with the original hard drive.

Is there any work-around for this such that I can at least retrieve the information on the old hard drive, or, better yet, bet the whole unit operational? I had though about trying to transfer data from the old hard drive to the working one.

If this is possible, how can I do it? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

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There's a couple of of hurdles here.

The first hurdle is, what about the original HD is causing the PB to shut off like that? That's interesting behavior for just a failed HD; usually the computer will either refuse to boot from it (flashing "?" while it looks for a bootable OS) or will get hung during the boot process. For it to shut off because of the HD isn't common in my experience.

Assuming the original HD is still accessible -- it spins up, the computer can see its SCSI ID, and all the files are there; it's just not bootable -- you should be able to retrieve the data from it. The HD in the PB140 is SCSI (and a 2.5" drive as well) so under normal circumstances you'll have some difficulties in getting a cost-effective solution. HOWEVER, you said that you bought a PowerBook 100 as well. If that PB100 is still functional then you're mostly home-free as the PB100 supports SCSI Disk Mode. Install the PB140's hard drive into the PB100, connect a special (NOT REGULAR) SCSI cable to both PBs, turn on the PB100 first, wait for the SCSI icon to appear on the PB100 screen, then turn on the PB140 and let it boot (this assumes the PB140 is bootable from that other hard drive). Once you reach the desktop, the hard drive in the PB100 should appear on the desktop as a regular SCSI hard drive. Copy whatever file(s) you want from there and you're done.

The biggest issues with SCSI Disk Mode is (a) finding a working SCSI Disk Mode adapter or cable, and (b) the assumption that the data on the original hard drive is still accessible (i.e., not a drive failure). If the drive is spinning but otherwise inaccessible your next step would be to find an identical (IDENTICAL) hard drive mechanism and carefully swap the controller boards between them.

I don't envy you this adventure. :-)

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I have yet to try out this solution, but I think this ought to work. Thank you very much!

da

You might be able to find an external SCSI drive case which will allow you to slide your drive into so you can then directly access it from the booting system.

At least this way you'll have an easier time as you'll need a collection of different SCSI cables: first the back to back SCSI cable and a second PowerBook to SCSI adapter or cable (need 2) all of which need to connect to each other.

If all fails you'll need to find a data recovery service which can recover your files from the dead drive. But it will be costly!

da

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Jack sarà eternamente grato.
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