Re: newbie with PB 170

[David Pekarsky]

THese are hard to find, however I did happen to pick up a couple at the 
last MIT Swapfest I went to.  These machines shipped with a 40mb or 
80mb drive originally which still got for between $10-$20.  The Entire 
1xx series save for the oddball 150 and the 190 which was built a 
couple years later, all use a 2.5" SCSI drive.  These pretty much look 
identical to a modern notebook/ laptop drive as new laptops use an ATA 
2.5" drive and they look quite similar save for the connectors which 
are different.  I picked up a couple 2.5 SCSI drives which are about 
120mb each, so if you are interested I can format one with an operating 
system for your machine so that you can pop it in and use it.

The installation can literally be done in three minutes once you get 
the hang of it compared to modern laptops which can take hours...see 
new iBook...  You will also need a Torx T-8 screwdriver as well as a 
Torx- T-10 version which are just two different sizes respectively.

You may find that either of them will take out the four Torx screws on 
the bottom of the machine as these have never seemed as a defined size, 
but you will need the size 8 one to take out the screw on the back near 
all the ports.  Once you have the five screws holding the top and 
bottom halves together, pry the back (ports on it) end apart about two 
inches and reach in and carefully unplug the display connector and then 
you can work your way around the frame to the front to separate the 
front half of the case which gets easier the more times the machine has 
been opened, just do not totally snap the connectors in doing so.  The 
smaller one (screwdriver) usually is then used again on the inside to 
unscrew the bracket securing the hard drive and the floppy drive in 
place.  Be careful when tightening or loosening the silver screws on 
the inside though as I found that the connections that the threads for 
the base that the screw goes into can break off quite easily if you 
tighten it too hard.

Good luck with everything and e-mail me offlist if you are interested 
in the drive which I can format for you with OS 7.5 (free) or 7.1 for 
testing and evaluation unless you have a license for it.  Overall the 
170 and most of the 1xx series are very capable machines, just try to 
avoid the 150 (not looking to start a flame war) as it was quite 
compromised in several ways.

David Pekarsky
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