Upgrading ibook g4 from regular cd-rom to dvd-rom. Can it be done?

[stina44]

Hi! I've been getting a lot of intellegent answers about what used mac to buy and from what I've been told I'd like to go with an ibook G4 instead of the G3 that I was looking at. There are a lot to choose from in my budget on ebay but not as many that have a dvd drive. Can I buy it as is and easily upgrade this myself later? Thank you!
Christina

 

[OutThere]

iBooks are notoriously difficult to open, and once opened may never quite fit back together correctly (they're assembled with two pieces of plastic that snap together).

I don't know what your budget constraints are, but I have to say I think you'd be much better served by a low end 13" original (intel) macbook. It will show its age much less than a G4.

 

[Intell]

Yes it can be upgraded. The optical drive is a modular part of the computer. The hardest part will be finding one for the iBook G4. They are becoming hard to find.

 

[MacHamster68]

the dvd rw superdrives form the 1.42ghz iBooks (they shipped with it ) should work out of the box , fitting is a bit fiddly but manageable

 

[SkyFoxe42]

I did this upgrade on my iBook G4 (1.33 GHz, 2004 version) a few years ago. Look at the repair guides at www.ifixit.com. They will show you what is entailed. As mentioned, it is not trivial to disassemble an iBook, but with careful work it can be successfully done. The most "fun" that I had was ripping the speaker connector off the motherboard (they do tell you to be careful about that in the guides). It took me 2 tries to reconnect it so that it was reliable. I've also upgraded the hard drive twice (first to 160 GB, then to 320 GB), so I know that being careful will give you a successful result. It's kept my old iBook useful for over 5 years.

 

[old-wiz]

You can always use an external usb or firewire DVD drive.