Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / June 2007

What model? I've done hard drives on many flavors of iBooks (G4 14" screen is
the worst!), a couple 12" G4 PowerBooks, and a couple MacBook Pros. If the
keys are like these, the trick is to put the necessary force into it but to
stop immediately. Yes, it does feel like it's going to break. It won't if
careful. But if you flip the key over onto its back you risk breaking some
tiny doohickies very necessary for the key's action and/or having the
scissors-like contraption under the key coming off the base. This is what
gives the springiness to the key. They used to use a rubbery type
configuration.

What you have, on the underside on the left are two pincher-like things that
grab part of the scissors thing. On the right side are two flange-type things
that slide under the other side of the scissors thing. So what you're wanting
to do is pop off the left side of the key and then slide it to the right so
as to free the key completely. To replace the key you slide the right side
until it catches and then snap the left down. While not major surgery, I once
mixed the F1 and F2 keys on a PowerBook when I replaced them. I left them
that way.