iBook G4 12" HD upgrade?
Discussion
Hi,
Got the dreaded 'HD full' message last night. Time to upgrade! I currently have a 12" iBook G4 model with a 30Gb HD. Is it possible to upgrade this and if so, how? Who sells the HD itself? I searched and could only find info on upgrading the Mini, so apologies if this is a repost.
Cheers
Got the dreaded 'HD full' message last night. Time to upgrade! I currently have a 12" iBook G4 model with a 30Gb HD. Is it possible to upgrade this and if so, how? Who sells the HD itself? I searched and could only find info on upgrading the Mini, so apologies if this is a repost.
Cheers
I've disassembled a few Powerbooks with the help of the PBFixit guides... they've renamed themselves iFixit for obvious reasons, and also have a disassembly guide for the iBook G4 12" -
linky
Print out the guide and it's pretty clear. They make their money from selling the replacement parts, their catalogue should show you which hard drives are compatible with the iBook G4.
Top tip - if the guide says you need a certain tool, get the tool and don't try to improvise!
linky
Print out the guide and it's pretty clear. They make their money from selling the replacement parts, their catalogue should show you which hard drives are compatible with the iBook G4.
Top tip - if the guide says you need a certain tool, get the tool and don't try to improvise!
cyberface said:
I've disassembled a few Powerbooks with the help of the PBFixit guides... they've renamed themselves iFixit for obvious reasons, and also have a disassembly guide for the iBook G4 12" -
linky
Print out the guide and it's pretty clear. They make their money from selling the replacement parts, their catalogue should show you which hard drives are compatible with the iBook G4.
Top tip - if the guide says you need a certain tool, get the tool and don't try to improvise!
linky
Print out the guide and it's pretty clear. They make their money from selling the replacement parts, their catalogue should show you which hard drives are compatible with the iBook G4.
Top tip - if the guide says you need a certain tool, get the tool and don't try to improvise!
Ahhhh, good man. I used the same guide to do my Powerbook (and Mini) but couldn't find the site again.
Oh, be sure to label where the screws come from. I ended up shorting out my Powerbook as the screws to hold the RAM compartment cover on are a gnats whisker shorter than some of the other screws which look identical (apart from the length). I'd used the wrong ones.
I've done a couple, it's pretty straightforward just a bit time consuming as a lot has to come out/off to get to the disk. The disk itself is a standard 2.5" (ATA, ie. not SATA) laptop drive, you can pick up an 80Gb one for around £50.
Once it's installed you'll have to reinstall MacOS and your programs - you can get the data off your old drive by putting it in a USB case, search ebay for '2.5" usb' for loads of options from about a fiver. Once copied over, the old drive in it's external case makes a handy backup drive for your important stuff.
Or if opening your iBook is too daunting, you could always buy a USB or firewire external drive. They're pretty cheap now - from £50 or so - and would let you dump any bulky stuff on there that you don't need when you're out and about (videos, music, that sort of thing). Minimum faff, and you also get somewhere to copy your important files to in case the iBook itself gets broken or stolen.
Once it's installed you'll have to reinstall MacOS and your programs - you can get the data off your old drive by putting it in a USB case, search ebay for '2.5" usb' for loads of options from about a fiver. Once copied over, the old drive in it's external case makes a handy backup drive for your important stuff.
Or if opening your iBook is too daunting, you could always buy a USB or firewire external drive. They're pretty cheap now - from £50 or so - and would let you dump any bulky stuff on there that you don't need when you're out and about (videos, music, that sort of thing). Minimum faff, and you also get somewhere to copy your important files to in case the iBook itself gets broken or stolen.
The Dude said:
Oh, be sure to label where the screws come from. I ended up shorting out my Powerbook as the screws to hold the RAM compartment cover on are a gnats whisker shorter than some of the other screws which look identical (apart from the length). I'd used the wrong ones.
A good tip is to use a ice cube tray as you go along and put each section in a different compartment. When you put it back together you work backwards.
I've got a screw matrix and step-by-step take aparts for all Macs. Email me if you want one.
magic torch said:
The Dude said:
Oh, be sure to label where the screws come from. I ended up shorting out my Powerbook as the screws to hold the RAM compartment cover on are a gnats whisker shorter than some of the other screws which look identical (apart from the length). I'd used the wrong ones.
A good tip is to use a ice cube tray as you go along and put each section in a different compartment. When you put it back together you work backwards.
I've got a screw matrix and step-by-step take aparts for all Macs. Email me if you want one.
I'll email you later. Nice one
Oh yeah, another top tip is to get a 7200 rpm drive. It will make a bloody significant difference to the perceived speed of your iBook. IIRC the iBooks all shipped with 4200 rpm drives which are slow. A decent 7200 rpm drive with a decent amount of cache will be massively faster and really noticeable on any disk-dependent task (app opening is the main one, with paging / swapfile second unless you're running silly small amounts of RAM, in which case paging can become the major issue).
You can get 7200 rpm drives up to 100 GB now, so unless you need 120 GB (which is only available in 5400 rpm IIRC) then go for the 7200. I've used Seagate Momentus and Hitachi (nee IBM) Travelstar drives in my Powerbooks and had no problem.
The 'issue' about increased heat output / battery consumption with the 7200 rpm drives is, IME, horseshit and not worth worrying about. If it's a worry then use Bresink's Temperature Monitor to constantly monitor the hard drive temperature, as long as it stays below 40C then you're safe.
You can get 7200 rpm drives up to 100 GB now, so unless you need 120 GB (which is only available in 5400 rpm IIRC) then go for the 7200. I've used Seagate Momentus and Hitachi (nee IBM) Travelstar drives in my Powerbooks and had no problem.
The 'issue' about increased heat output / battery consumption with the 7200 rpm drives is, IME, horseshit and not worth worrying about. If it's a worry then use Bresink's Temperature Monitor to constantly monitor the hard drive temperature, as long as it stays below 40C then you're safe.
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