So I've got two identical PowerBooks, each of which has its own problems, and neither of which really works very well. My hope is that, between the two, I can make one working PowerBook. Here's the rundown:

PowerBook one:
- The jack where the charger plugs in doesn't work very well, making it next to impossible to charge.
- The Airport slot on the mother board is effed, so there's no wifi.
- The case is jacked to hell.

PowerBook two:
- The screen is fubar.
- It only recognizes the topmost RAM slot, I have a one gb stick in that slot.
- The case is in beautiful shape.

So... What I was thinking was that I could take the monitor from PowerBook one and stick it on PowerBook two, and... Umm... I guess that's about it. We were also going to put a new hard drive in the thing while it's apart.

It seems like there was more to it than this, but I'm a little slow this morning. Anyway, think this is doable? How likely is it that I could get that other RAM slot working?

I's quite possible to swap screens, but the RAM slot problem is probably the logic board, which is fubar on the other because of the Airport slot, so there's not much you can do about the RAM slot, you'll have to live with that.

Thanks Reboot. After typing it out, I realized it's not all that much to do. Could you give me a link to the correct hard drive? I'd like to get that ordered this weekend.

You'll need a 2.5 in Ultra ATA (IDE) drive, not an SATA. What size Gb are you looking to put in?

May have to catch up with you tonight. Gotta' run out.

Some places are now calling those PATA drives.

I'd like to go as big as possible... I'll have a look. There's probably no limiting factor to hard drive size on these like some other older machines, is there?

Can you think of any reason to stay away from the larger sizes they have here?

No size limit. Watch RPM if you're concerned about performance, battery life and heat doesn't matter much with a faster drive BTW, not the newer ones anyway. 4200 RPM drives are usually cheaper priced.

I missed this, I think. What model PB is it? What do you intend to do with it? If it will be your main squeeze and you intend to use it for photo/video editing and/or music creation/editing/archiving, I'd go for the largest HDD you can get/afford. Otherwise, if it is a secondary machine, get what is affordable and then dump files to a desktop or external drive as needed.

I never have like WD drives, not noted for reliability in the past, but they do have a 3 year warranty. I prefer Seagate, Fujitsu, or Samsung, but I've seen all of those brands fail too, notebook drives are the least reliable.

That 320 WD for $95 looks like it's worth a try though, great price.