Hi folks.
I'm looking for some help on a problem I have with my iBook.
I think I know the answer, but I thought I'd double check with folks who knew for sure before I went ahead and bought any parts that might turn out to be unuseable.
Here's the lowdown:
Last summer, I bought a three-year-old 500mhz G3 iBook from a friend of mine.
It was awesome (and even convinced me to also track down a G4 tower to replace my POS Windows machine), and ran wonderfully up until about a month ago -- I tried to run a software update, it irretreivably froze, I did a hard reboot, and it hasn't booted properly since.
It freezes forever on the spinning pinwheel startup, then eventually turns into a prohibitory sign.
When I put my ear to the lower left corner, I heard nada, and when I prodded the computer to tell me what was wrong, it revealed that it doesn't recognize my hard drive as a bootable volume -- hurrah.
Long story short, the Geniuses at the Apple Store confirmed my suspicions, and I'm going to need a new hard drive if I ever want to use this baby again.
At any rate, this brings me to my real question:
I'm going to do this myself.
This part doesn't worry me -- I've been taking apart and building PCs since I was a kid, so I'm expecting difficulty and annoyance, but not impossibility.
What I am confused about is parts.
I've been spoiled by years of home-built machines that will accept nearly any cheap generic part you throw at them.
Now...I'm not looking to throw cheap parts into my iBook, but I am a fourth-year university student.
I'm broke, and not only can I not afford spankin new parts straight from Apple, but I'm not sure I need them.
The iBook wasn't my primary computer (just my portable baby), so the 10gb drive that was in there before it died was more than adequate, and I'm fairly positive that any drive that small is discontinued now anyway.
So what I want to know is: will any ol' 2.5" ATA notebook drive work in an iBook, or will I end up with an apple fritter if I don't buy something proprietary?
Does anyone have any recommendations for inexpensive replacement drives that will work?
(High performance isn't an issue so much as whether or not it works.)
Also, while I've got the laptop open, I also want to throw in some more memory (the only thing that irked me about the laptop was that it had trouble playing videos in Panther, and it would've been nice to be able to use the DVD drive).
Any recommendations on the issue of what kind of memory these things can take?
How many RAM slots are inside, and much can be upgraded inside these things?
I could probably figure all of this out by opening the laptop up, but I'd really rather not do that until the real surgery date arrives, if possible, so I'd appreciate any advice and of you folks have on the matter.
Thanks again!
I'm looking for some help on a problem I have with my iBook.
I think I know the answer, but I thought I'd double check with folks who knew for sure before I went ahead and bought any parts that might turn out to be unuseable.
Here's the lowdown:
Last summer, I bought a three-year-old 500mhz G3 iBook from a friend of mine.
It was awesome (and even convinced me to also track down a G4 tower to replace my POS Windows machine), and ran wonderfully up until about a month ago -- I tried to run a software update, it irretreivably froze, I did a hard reboot, and it hasn't booted properly since.
It freezes forever on the spinning pinwheel startup, then eventually turns into a prohibitory sign.
When I put my ear to the lower left corner, I heard nada, and when I prodded the computer to tell me what was wrong, it revealed that it doesn't recognize my hard drive as a bootable volume -- hurrah.
Long story short, the Geniuses at the Apple Store confirmed my suspicions, and I'm going to need a new hard drive if I ever want to use this baby again.
At any rate, this brings me to my real question:
I'm going to do this myself.
This part doesn't worry me -- I've been taking apart and building PCs since I was a kid, so I'm expecting difficulty and annoyance, but not impossibility.
What I am confused about is parts.
I've been spoiled by years of home-built machines that will accept nearly any cheap generic part you throw at them.
Now...I'm not looking to throw cheap parts into my iBook, but I am a fourth-year university student.
I'm broke, and not only can I not afford spankin new parts straight from Apple, but I'm not sure I need them.
The iBook wasn't my primary computer (just my portable baby), so the 10gb drive that was in there before it died was more than adequate, and I'm fairly positive that any drive that small is discontinued now anyway.
So what I want to know is: will any ol' 2.5" ATA notebook drive work in an iBook, or will I end up with an apple fritter if I don't buy something proprietary?
Does anyone have any recommendations for inexpensive replacement drives that will work?
(High performance isn't an issue so much as whether or not it works.)
Also, while I've got the laptop open, I also want to throw in some more memory (the only thing that irked me about the laptop was that it had trouble playing videos in Panther, and it would've been nice to be able to use the DVD drive).
Any recommendations on the issue of what kind of memory these things can take?
How many RAM slots are inside, and much can be upgraded inside these things?
I could probably figure all of this out by opening the laptop up, but I'd really rather not do that until the real surgery date arrives, if possible, so I'd appreciate any advice and of you folks have on the matter.
Thanks again!
-Paul
