Buying a G4 iBook, new to upgrading macs

[Mwebb86]

Hey. So no, I'm not a Mac newbie, but yes, I've never done anything other than upgrade the RAM on my iMac.

I'm buying a 14" iBook G4 for a great price, and as I know how to upgrade the RAM, I don't have the slightest idea on the actual Hard Drive.

http://lowendmac.com/ibooks/14in-ibook-g4-1.2-ghz.html

That is the model I'm getting. What I'm wondering is first, will this HD work with it? http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD800BEVE/


Second, while I've seen the instructional videos and what not, how do I install Snow Leopard on this new hard drive? When I turn the machine on, will it just wait for the installation cd to get in, do I need to copy it over, what's the best option? I want to start 'fresh' if that makes sense.

Some help would be appreciated, and I'm picking up the iBook tomorrow, just want to get the right answers before pulling the trigger on the new HD.

Thanks,

Marty

 

[Nameci]

Hello Marty, there is no way you can install Snow Leopard. Leopard is the last cat you can install on the iBook.

... and yes that HDD will work.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

You can't install Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard onto a PPC Mac, and an iBook is a PPC Mac and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is Intel only. The farthest you can "ERASE & INSTALL" is Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard.

 

[miles01110]

What is a "great price" for a computer that can't run modern software? I wouldn't even take an iBook G4 for free at this point. Complete waste of time for everyone involved.

 

[Nameci]

Really, total waste of time?

And what is old software to you? So everyone should just throw away their iBooks and buy the spanking new MBA's probably? The "greatest", the "fastest"?

Come on, it is his choice. If he likes the iBook then why not, it is not you who will be using it. Your taste and needs and "wants" is not the same as his.

 

[Mwebb86]

Okay, didn't even think of the Intel situation. That still works out fine for me.

And for the record this laptop will fill two simple purposes. School (Typing, Excel, etc.) and the occasional web-browsing.

I'd love to be able to share the screen w/ my iMac, but it's running Snow Leopard, not even possible if that would work. Not a biggie if it doesn't anyways.

 

[FourCandles]

You can still screen share from (for example) an iBook running 10.5.8 Leopard to an iMac running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard or V-V.

As others say, Leopard will run on that iBook - but you may find that it is slower than running Tiger (10.4.11) on the same machine. I have a 1.33GHz iBook and I think that is about the break even point between Tiger and Leopard. Others' views may differ on this and it depends on your usage and what software you want to run of course.

Even if you do find Leopard slower than Tiger, you have to balance that against the better availabilty of software for Leopard.

Replacing the hard drive is unfortunately one of the more tricky jobs on those machines. There is an excellent guide at iFixit.com here which guides you through it, shows you what tools you need and even gives you a handy sheet to print out to keep all of the screws. They also have a guide to installing OS X on the new drive.

The machine should be just as good for Excel and Word as the day it was made (I'm assuming you will be maxing the RAM, which is a much easier job than the HDD). For web browsing you may want to look at alternative web browsers such as iCab, TenFourFox and Camino G4, which can give better performance on older machines than Safari etc.

Hope this helps

PS welcome to the forums!

 

[tom vilsack]

-the harddrive will work,and make a big improvement if your going to run leopard (without a new harddrive,even if max ram,i would stay with tiger)...a bit of a pain to replace the old one,but really worth the time and effort.

-also if your going to spend the money on a harddrive i would also max out the ram (1.25 i believe?)

if you do go with leopard (or tiger) turning off dashboard and spotlight can improve speed a tad...(google or ask and i can post how)