Difficulty
Difficult
Steps
21
Time Required
- Battery 1 step
- Lower Case 1 step
- Hard Drive 4 steps
- Optical Drive Removal 6 steps
- Optical Drive 9 steps
Featured Guide
This guide has been found to be exceptionally cool by the iFixit staff.
Introduction
Easily upgrade to a fast 8x SuperDrive.
-
Locate the battery release tab on the underside of the G4.
-
Slide the battery release tab to the left and lift the battery out of the computer.
-
Remove the seven T8 Torx screws from the lower case.
-
Using your thumbs, slide the lower case toward the front of the computer.
-
The lower case may stick in the front on a tab just above the center of the optical drive. Be careful as you work the case off, or you may break the thin strip of plastic just above the drive.
-
Lift the lower case off.
-
Disconnect the hard drive ribbon from the logic board using a spudger or the tip of your finger.
-
To free the hard drive, remove the two T8 Torx screws from the right wall of the battery housing.
-
Remove the hard drive by lifting the left edge up and out of the computer.
The hard drive can be removed with its bumpers intact, by just taking off the black plastic clamp to its right. Reinserting the drive is also vastly easier when done this way.
-
Your laptop should look approximately like this.
-
Disconnect and remove the indicated orange ribbon cable.
-
Disconnect the pink and white inverter cable from the inverter board.
The pink and white inverter cable connection to the inverter board is very tight. Grasp the notch on the right side of the white connector with needle nose pliers and gently wiggle and pull it out of the socket.
-
Remove the two silver T8 Torx screws from the black plastic bar.
-
Lift the black plastic bar out.
-
Disconnect the two orange connectors from the logic board, removing tape as necessary.
-
Lift the drive up on the right side so that you can access and disconnect the modem cable and inverter cable.
-
Remove the drive by lifting the right edge up and out of the computer.
-
Remove the 4 T6 Torx screws securing the modem and inverter boards to the optical drive.
-
Lift the inverter board off of the optical drive.
-
Lift the modem off of the optical drive, carefully guiding the orange cable through the metal mounting bracket.
-
Disconnect the orange optical drive ribbon from the back of the drive.
-
Remove the 2 Phillips screws from the side with the longer bumper.
-
Remove the bracket from the optical drive.
-
Remove the 2 Phillips screws from the other side of the optical drive.
-
Remove the bracket from the optical drive.
-
Remove the 4 Phillips #00 screws from the top of the optical drive.
-
Lift up on the thinner edge of the optical drive so that you can access and depress the recessed black tab using a spudger.
-
Use a spudger to depress and release the two black tabs on top of the optical drive directly over the bezel.
-
Use a spudger to depress and release the black tab on the left side of the optical drive.
![Image 1/1: If you have a CD or any other object jammed in your optical drive, we have an [guide|772|optical drive repair guide].](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/jSmTK14LwhiXmtRe.medium)
-
Carefully remove the bezel from the optical drive, minding the two plastic tabs on the bottom, which may catch.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
Cancel: I did not complete this guide.
12 other people completed this guide.
