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Upgrading iBook G4 Hard drive (Will it void AppleCare?)

M

morphineseason

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 1, 2007
306
259
I just bought an iBook G4 off of someone, and I think the specs are decent, but the hard drive is a little small for my taste (40gb). I've seen how painful the process looks for upgrading these things, but my main concern is if I upgraded it myself, or had a tech person in town install it (who probably isn't an Apple specialist but has done this before), would it void the AppleCare on the rest of the machine? I found a place near me that has an Apple specialist that will install it but they charge $90/hour and he said it would be a minimum of 2 hours, which seems pretty pricey to me, but maybe I should go this route since it wouldn't void the AppleCare. Keep in mind, this particular machine has AppleCare until Feb. 2009, so I'd really like to keep that.

I've read a couple places online that workers at certain Apple stores said they didn't even pay attention to hard drive upgrades when it came to AppleCare (as long as it wasn't a hard drive problem that you were going in for anyways), even when the users said they upgraded the hard drive themselves, but I just wanted to see if anyone else could confirm this for me (possibly an Apple Store employee if there are any on these forums).

Thanks
 
Spanky Deluxe

Spanky Deluxe

macrumors demi-god
Mar 17, 2005
5,282
1,745
London, UK
How much Applecare does it have left? Upgrading a hard drive in an iBook is pretty easy to do if you know what you're doing. If you don't, its highly frustrating and you can end up scratching the case etc. 40GB isn't too bad in a laptop. What do you need/want the extra space for? You might find an external HD would be better. If you still want portability then a 2.5" external drive can be powered off of USB. If you want the space then you can get a 500GB drive for less than a 100GB laptop drive + installation would cost.

Although I have a ton of storage in my Mac Pro, my iBook only has 60GB and it hardly ever gets full apart from when I load it up with videos when I'm going travelling. 40GB is enough for applications, work and music for most people + some extra space for temporary large files which could be usually stored on an external drive.

Think about it this way, if you get a large external drive, say 500GB, when you're at home you have access to all the space you need. When you're out and about, how much of that data would you actually need access to? If you were going away for a long time, say even a holiday of a week, you'll probably be taking luggage anyway into which you could store the external drive.
 
Frankf300

Frankf300

macrumors regular
Oct 15, 2006
201
1
NY
Spanky Deluxe makes a very good point. 40gb is definitely not small for a laptop. I have an external 60gb connected to my iBook and I actually haven't had to use it yet. It's sitting there with nothing on it still. :D
 
M

morphineseason

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 1, 2007
306
259
That's something I'm still thinking about. I haven't actually received the iBook yet, hopefully the person mailed it out today. Since I have my own iMac 17" core duo with 160gb hard drive at home, I plan on using that for all of my entertainment needs (music/videos/etc.), so I'm kind of torn between whether I would really need the extra space or not...I've just grown so used to having a 100gb hard drive in my windows laptop. It's kind of a "have to wait and see" type thing, I guess.

In the mean time I'd just like to know what kind of problems I might run in to with upgrading the hard drive as far as AppleCare goes. I'd like to have most, if not all of the iLife apps installed too, which is going to take up 10gigs right off the bat, plus the OS itself which i'm sure takes up another pretty hefty chunk of space. Plus I do occasional graphic work with photoshop and what not and may want to save some of my work, plus other random school work.

Once again, the applecare is in effect until Feb. 2009, so it's a pretty substantial amount and I'd hate to give that up since it was one of the main reasons I bit on this specific deal.

Spanky Deluxe said:
How much Applecare does it have left? Upgrading a hard drive in an iBook is pretty easy to do if you know what you're doing. If you don't, its highly frustrating and you can end up scratching the case etc. 40GB isn't too bad in a laptop. What do you need/want the extra space for? You might find an external HD would be better. If you still want portability then a 2.5" external drive can be powered off of USB. If you want the space then you can get a 500GB drive for less than a 100GB laptop drive + installation would cost.

Although I have a ton of storage in my Mac Pro, my iBook only has 60GB and it hardly ever gets full apart from when I load it up with videos when I'm going travelling. 40GB is enough for applications, work and music for most people + some extra space for temporary large files which could be usually stored on an external drive.

Think about it this way, if you get a large external drive, say 500GB, when you're at home you have access to all the space you need. When you're out and about, how much of that data would you actually need access to? If you were going away for a long time, say even a holiday of a week, you'll probably be taking luggage anyway into which you could store the external drive.
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