06-26-2008, 08:11 AM

The hard drive in my Powerbook G4 crashed recently. I just installed a new hard drive last night. Since I cannot access the old hard drive I'm not sure how to format the new hard drive and install the operating system. Can someone help me with how to do this?

Thank you

06-26-2008, 08:20 AM

If I follow your question correctly, you don't need your old drive you need your system installation disks. Just pop it in, reboot, hold down the 'c' key. You will be given the option to format (HFS+ Journaled) and off you go!
If you have data on your old drive and there is any possibility of recovering it, get an enclosure for it. You don't mention your model of G4 PowerBook so you want to get an enclosure that does both USB and Firewire and holds a 2.5" laptop drive.

06-26-2008, 08:57 AM

I recently upgraded my Mac OS to 10.5 Leopard so I am assumming this is the disk I should insert. I have the original disks but these are from the old operating system. I tried inserting the new operating system disk this but I did not hold down the "C" key. I will try this tonight.

I did purchase a case and have my old hard drive installed in a case so that I can try and recoved some of the files.

Thank you,
Dave

06-26-2008, 12:24 PM

You are well on your way! Use the Leopard disk, never mind the old ones. I hope you can get your data back.