Is my iBook G4 dying? [more inside]
posted by Brachiosaurus on Apr 2, 2009 - 7 answers

The hard drive in my girlfriend's iBook (12" G4 late 2004) died, or at least that's what I think happened. I want to cover all my bases and I need a little advice on best practices. [more inside]
posted by clockwork on Feb 17, 2009 - 8 answers

broken ibook conundrum: help me come up with an affordable and sensible replacement solution? [more inside]
posted by garfy3 on Mar 14, 2007 - 5 answers

Data recovery in target disk mode: what are the pitfalls? [more inside]
posted by mds35 on Jul 30, 2006 - 8 answers

I've got an intermittent iBook hard drive problem that has me stumped. The computer works fine for a short period of time, then completely freezes. The "good" period of time has gotten shorter and shorter. [more inside]
posted by letitrain on Jun 4, 2006 - 9 answers

Has my iBook hard drive failed or is something else going on? [more inside]
posted by anglophiliated on Mar 20, 2006 - 11 answers

The internal hard drive on my G3/600Mhz iBook is not long for this earth. I'm looking for advice from MeFis who have replaced the drive themselves; specifically, if faced with the task again would you say "Hell no!" or rather "Wow, that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be"? [more inside]
posted by blueberry on Dec 13, 2005 - 17 answers

A couple of days ago, my iBook (G4, dual USB, 800Mhz) hard drive started making excessive noise, like it was continually writing, and the computer slowed wayyy down. I backed up all the important data, then ran several diagnostic programs: TechTool Pro 4, Drive 10, Norton Utilities 8. All came up with major errors, first with the volume bitmap, then with the disk surface itself, i.e. bad blocks. None of them could fix the problem (although Norton said it did), so I erased the disk with the option to write zeroes selected. After erasing three times, TechTool Pro still found bad blocks on the surface scan test. [more inside]
posted by letitrain on Feb 21, 2005 - 14 answers

A long-time PC user, I am planning to switch to Apple, replacing my centrino laptop by a 12" ibook G4 (I want a small computer).

Most of the standard Apple configurations come with 256MB of RAM: is this because OSX needs less memory than XP (since most laptop configs today come with 512MB), or do I need to go for 512 (768?) megs?

I mainly use my computer to browse the web, send & receive e-mails, do some word processing, and manage my MP3, which I only store on my iPod.

Other question:
If I buy the computer at the local Apple Store (I'm in NYC), I'll only be able to get a memory upgrade, and not a hard disk upgrade. The laptop comes with a 30GB drive. For a Windows PC, I'd go for 60GB: should I do the same here? This would make me have to order it online, which is a bit of a problem (I'm not often at home...).
posted by rubin421 on Dec 6, 2004 - 33 answers