iBook G4 Surgery

This one falls under the “extreme geek” category: a few months ago I decided to replace the hard drive in my 2004 oldie-but-goody Apple iBook.  The iBook shipped with a 60GB standard Apple drive (probably a Hitachi).  With all the podcasts, music, and video I have been acquiring lately, the need for more storage presented itself in a similar fashion that a running deer presents himself to unsuspecting drivers when the creature runs across 8 lanes of the interstate.  I downloaded and printed the iBook hard drive replacement instructions and screw guides from iFixit.com, an excellent DIY site that has instructions and tips for projects from how to replace an iPod battery to any Mac-related project.

Difficulty

Replacing a hard drive in a desktop PC is a piece of cake: pop off the panel covering and remove the sliding SATA trays.  But when it comes to notebook computers, the difficulty varies since the construction of notebooks is not as standardized as it is for desktop PCs.  For example: in most Dell notebooks, one only need to remove four screws and a covering panel on the bottom of the machine to get to the hard drive; on an iBook (as it was in my case), one needs to remove upwards of 30 screws and take apart practically the entire computer.

Supplies

Removing upwards of 30 screws from my main machine wasn’t exactly something I took lightly.  After hearing Adam Christianson of the MacCast podcast go through with the procedure with his iBook and break the internal power supply cable, I became even more fearful.  But my growing storage needs overcame my fear and I decided to do it.  After looking at iFixit’s excellent step-by-step picture and instruction guides I set a budget of no more than $150 on the entire project and ended up ordering these items:

• Western Digital 250.0GB “Scorpio” 5400RPM 9.5MM SuperSlim IDE Notebook Drive with 8MB Data buffer (from MacSales.com; $114.99 for drive, $119.99 shipped)
• iFixit.com tools: total $12.85 – $5.00 discount + $4.11 shipping = $11.96 total.
  • Spudger (from iFixit.com, $2.95)
  • T8 Torx Screwdriver (from iFixit.com; $4.95)
  • Phillips #0 Screwdriver (From iFixit.com; $4.95)

iFixit.com

Besides providing excellent guides that are tailored to your specific model Mac and iPod repair/DIY projects, iFixit.com also sells the tools you need for those projects.  In my case I needed the above screw drivers and spudger and iFixit.com has a very convenient option to purchase these when you are looking at the project your are planning on accomplishing.  Sure I could have gone to the local hardware store and bought these there, but I was willing to wait since I ordered the hard drive online as well.  Besides, I would rather pay a small amount extra for shipping and handling and make my choice online of the exact items I need than to go and hunt these items down in multiple local stores.  Who knows, maybe the local store is out of the T8 Torx today…

P.S. A note of importance: being built in 2004, my iBook uses an ATA connection for its drives instead of SATA (Serial ATA).  As far as I know, all other iBooks also utilize the same ATA connection interface.  The new MacBooks, which replaced the iBooks in Apple’s lineup a few years ago, use SATA.

Upon receiving the hard drive and the tools, I backed everything up to an external drive using the awesome (and free) Carbon Copy Cloner and got to work.  Without further ado, here are the pictures I have from the “iBook surgery” (my Flickr set).  A time-lapse video is below.  Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions on the procedure in the comments.

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