[IJMcG]

Alright, I really need some help here. I've had this iBook since about March 1st and it was an incredible computer for about 2 and half months, then one day I was doing an assignment for school and laid it down on my bed while I went to get a snack and when I came back it had fallen off the bed (i probably should have set it there, but it's too late now) and it was on the floor. I picked it up and everything seemed fine, so I tried to open Safari and then the computer froze. I used ctrl+apple+power to restart it and that spinning restart circle just went forever, I left it for 3 hours and when I came back it was still doing it. I checked it several times a day and it kept doing it so finally I called Apple (but never told Apple or my parents that I dropped it because i was worried about voiding the warranty) and they had me clear my hard drive and reinstall OS X Panther, which I did, and the Computer worked fine until I restarted it, in which it went back to doing the same thing, then I called again and they had me "partition the harddrive or something" i dunno, i had my sister talk to them that time and it has worked fairly well since then, but it still takes about 10-15 minutes to start up which is becoming very annoying. I was going to just live with it but now four months later (and with my 3 month warranty expired) I want to fix it. Also after a while my computer gets really slow and takes forever to start up a user and load all the applications. Also Acquisition and Safari will just stop working and i'll have to make a new account to use them and get the computer to speed up again (then eventually the same thing will happen to that account)

anyway, i want to know what all of you guys recommend doing about this. What part of my computer could I replace (if any?) or what should I do to solve this.

iBook G4
OS X 10.3
60gb HD
512mb Memory

[fleaplus]

It sounds like the hard drive is damaged. A telltale sign is if you can hear loud clicking or thunking when the computer begins to stall. Try booting off of the OSX install cd with the option key held down to run Apple Hardware Test. The diagnostic tools might be able to confirm if its the hard drive or maybe even find out if the problem is with something else.

iBooks do come standard with a one year parts & labor warranty, so I would suggest either calling the tech support again and requesting the drive be replaced. You could also try taking it to an Apple Store if you have one locally. The genius bar can diagnose your system, setup a warranty repair, and ship it out for you (which means less hassle if one of these stores are close by) It usually takes a week or so to have a repair done.

If your warranty has expired, or if you feel guilty about having apple replace the drive (if that is the problem) then you can replace it yourself, also. Any standard PC notebook ATA drive will work that is 9.5mm or less in height. A pretty good repair guide available on www.pbfixit.com . I went through the steps earlier today and upgraded my iBook's stock drive to a 5400rpm. Hopefully you can get yours fixed either way. Post back if you have more questions...