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iBook overhaul leads to frustration as well as success
I finally got round to undertaking the incredibly complicated and scary technical job I’ve been talking and writing about for weeks now. Yesterday I took my old [[Apple]] Dual USB G3 500MHz white [[iBook]] to pieces, removed the 10Gb hard drive and busted CD-R it came with originally, and replaced them with a 40Gb [[Samsung]] hard drive and a [[Sony]] CD-RW/DVD drive before putting the iBook back together again.
I followed the instructions I downloaded in PDF format from ifixit.com to the letter, and have Hayes to thank for pointing me in the direction of that enormously useful website in the first place.
I’m not great when it comes to organisation under most circumstances but I knew if I so much as slipped up once, I could destroy the computer and waste a lot of money spent on new parts, so every screw that came out was immediately taped to a sheet of paper. This meant, by the time I’d completely taken the iBook apart, I had a sequential set of screws as well as other bits and pieces such as springs and rubber feet.
All I had to do – ha, all I had to do, I say! – when putting the machine back together again was to follow the instructions, and the line-up of screws and bits, in reverse order. I also covered the screen with a tea-towel to avoid scratching it while pulling up boards and teasing out tiny screws, which were liable to take flight across the kitchen, and often did.
The job took me around two-and-a-half hours, not including breaks, which was half an hour less than most Apple-related websites said it should take and so at least three hours less than I expected given I have never, ever attempted anything like this before.
I discovered during the process that a spring mechanism in the battery compartment had been missing since I bought the iBook from where it should be. I found it inside the casing. There had always been a dark spot on the undercasing, too, which turned out to be a tiny gap in the inside white paintwork. I fixed that with a dab of matt household paint, the kind you put on walls and skirting boards. Sloppy work, Apple! I also learned that laptops are mostly held together by tinfoil and tape, once you get past the outer shielding. I couldn’t help thinking, all the time I was disembowelling the iBook, of those dream homes people buy that turn out to be have damp, dodgy wiring and bugs behind the smooth interior walls. We pay thousands of pounds for computers and they’re held together by a few screws, some string and spit.
The new combo drive works and the new hard disk is identified as functioning by the Apple Hardware Diagnostics CD I used to test everything before attempting to install OS 9. That’s where I hit a wall of frustration and anger. The Drive Setup program won’t even acknowledge the new hard drive is there, so I can’t initialise (format) it and therefore can’t get the operating system onto the machine. I took the entire iBook apart and put it back together – again, and in less than an hour second time round – to check the connections on the hard drive were as they should be, before I discovered an online database of Mac-compatible drives with user reviews. Turns out the drive is entirely compatible – which I knew, as any 2.5-inch laptop hard drive would be okay so long as it matched the dimensions overall – and lots of people have installed it successfully on iBooks and PowerBooks. The thing I noted was that none had installed the drive using anything earlier than the latest Mac OS X (known as Tiger).
As I see it, there are two possibilities here: one is that I need to install OS X Tiger, which I will very soon thanks to the help and generosity of a friend overseas who shall remain nameless here but s/he knows who s/he is, and has my gratitute for their kind assistance. The other is that the drive came to me busted, which is unlikely but I will know within a week or so for certain and it will still be returnable if it is kaput. And I won’t feel quite so daunted if I have to open up the iBook a third and fourth time (once to remove the drive to send it back, then again to install a replacement). I hope it doesn’t come to that, of course!
Apparently, the latest versions of OS X are much, much better at playing nicely with components not approved by Apple. Good job. I can only assume Apple saw sense in realising that if you want to get Windows users on board (or in my case, back on board), you have to be a little less parochial with these things – plus, a DIY-restored Apple computer is better, surely, than Apple computers going on the scrapheap or into the attic? I mean, once this iBook is up and running, I’ll be sat in coffee shops displaying that Apple logo while I type. All Apple portable users are advertisements for the company when out and about, so it hardly matters what age the machine is or what components are inside it.
The bottom line is I learned a lot and am very proud of myself for having the guts to get at the er, guts, of the iBook and save in excess of £200 in labour costs. I am also incredibly frustrated for the time being to have an upgraded, restored machine that is about as much use as a breakfast tray until I can get its brains onboard. I have to keep reminding myself that this project isn’t a disaster and has gone very well so far.
