IBook upgrade

Amazingly, lots of other people are out there also covering this but if my blog helps just one person be successful I will be glad.

I had a 2004 G4 iBook in need of a new hard disk and found a decent price, while at it I planned to upgrade the memory to 768 from the original 512. Cost was about $80. But I wasn't sure where to start so I searched online and found lots of people have step by step instructions out there. I settled on www.ifixit.com as it also had a screw chart and clear pictures with tips and warnings. I am adding my own here, have a top quality set of tools. Poor quality screwdrivers could cause trouble getting out the multitude of screws. I fortunately only had 2 start to strip and had to find another method of removing them.

There however was no mention of what to do to install the new OS. I suspect they thought I would Disk Copy to the new drive and that would be that. I didn't want to go that route as the old drive had a lot of stuff that just wasn't needed and I wanted a fresh install so my daughter could have an easier time and faster response. I did find a forum with what I needed. So for those of you who are not used to the process. You will need to use the disk utility on the install disk to format the drive and then reboot from the install disk and before you begin the install. I was afraid I had really blown it until I found that post.

Ifixit calls this a "hard" job and they aren't kidding. There are 46 screws to keep track of on this job and 53 steps in the ifixit list (you have to do them in reverse to put it all back so it's really 106 steps in all). Still armed with clear instructions and warnings to take care and not break things, and to have an ice cube tray (thanks to an Apple Genius for that tip) to help keep all those screws straight, I tackled the job on Christmas Eve (the repaired laptop was to be a Christmas gift). I began about Noon and with breaks for fixing dinner, I managed the whole thing before 9:30 including doing a backup of the fresh machine so I can restore faster next time. I think the most time went into running updates after the fresh install (remember the install disks are 3.5 years old and there were 21 updates to install) and locating the software I felt she needed; Firefox, plugins, and NeoOffice.

All in all I am proud of this accomplishment but I don't recommend this job for the faint fo heart. next I get to fix a bad keyboard on a Compaq, looks easier but we'll see once the new part arrives.