Not sure why, but my 17” PowerBook5,9 A1139 just doesn’t like the 480GB OWC Legacy Mercury Electra G3 SSDs. I did not try smaller OWC SSDs. I eventually found that KingSpec 512GB PATA/IDE SSD works fine on the first go. Previously, I was using a Western Digital Scorpion Blue 320GB, WD3200BEVE

I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my WD to the KingSpec, then checked and verified the KingSpec before disassembling the PowerBook and installing the new drive. I have two USB adapters for PATA/IDE drives. One uses a single connector, the other uses a 2nd USB connector for additional power. The KingSpec worked better with the dual USB connector adapter. With the single USB, the driver would intermittently disappear and only reappear if disconnected/reconnected.

As an additional note/suggestion, I keep a bootable harddrive back-up on an external firewire drive. This older PowerBookG4 won’t boot from a USB drive. Having a current back-up on an external bootable firewire drive comes in very handy.

JaesonK

Did you find a solution for yours? I may have the same problem.

I have a different cooling apparatus in my Quad Core than the one pictured here. It has a wider radiator on the left side and two black pumps on the right side. The pumps are elevated away from the CPUs. Nearest the CPUS is a grey plastic covering with Cooligy printed on it.

I can only find 6 of the 8 screws mentioned in STEP 15. The unit will not come out. If the 2 remaining screws are as pictured in STEP 18, then they would be directly under my radiator. Do I need to remove that too?

Great guide. All in all, this is pretty easy but I've hit a snag with the hard drive. I have a PowerBook5,6 and a PowerBook5,9.

I want to simply transfer the actual hard drive from my older model to the 17" model. The SSD works fine in my 15" PowerBook but the 17" doesn't see it. It boots to a grey screen and stays there. When I boot from my Leopard install DVD, that works but Disk Utilities doesn't show a hard drive at all. I rechecked cables & attachments.

The 480GB SSD is formatted with Apple Partition Map and OS Extended Journaled. It works fine when I return it to the 15" and the 17" works fine with its IDE drive.

I thought this would be an easy swap. What might I be missing? What is different with the A1139?

Thanks.