[megasad]

[The iBook I'm talking about is a late 2001 Dual-USB model, 600MHz G3, 640MB RAM, 15GB hard drive, DVD-ROM drive.]

I turn on my iBook and hear a low "doo-doo", followed by a very loud "Doo-doo-doo! Doo-doo-doo!". The iBook cannot see the 15GB internal drive and the only way I can use the machine is by plugging in an external firewire drive and booting off of that. Once logged in to 10.2.8, I can see the internal drive in Apple System Profiler and Disk Utility, but it shows up as "�"% Media", with a total capacity of "0,00 Bytes". The "Doo-doo-doo!" sound also occurs at random while using the machine and does not come from the regular speakers, but seems to come from the hard drive itself.

Since I hope to buy a new eMac soon, I figured I'd run the iBook from the firewire drive for the forseeable future. So, yesterday, I tried to install Panther onto the firewire drive. When prompted for the second CD, the machine seemed unable to see the DVD drive any longer. A restart later, and I had 10.3 installed (minus everything that wasn't on the first CD), only the DVD drive was not recognised. In Disk Utility, the internal drive did not show up at all.

Is this because the internal hard drive and DVD drive are on the same Bus? Is the problem with said bus or the drive itself? If I take out the old hard drive and put in a new one, will all be well? Or will I still not be able to access the DVD drive, the internal hard drive not even appear in Panther?

Will this hard drive work in a G3 600MHz iBook? Is 9.5mm too high? And will these instructions see me in good stead? Are there any other walkthroughs / diagrams / photographs online?

I'd like to get this iBook working again, so thanks for any help.

[rjenkinson]

if it's a beeping sort of sound, it might be the SMART function of the drive: basically, the drive might be dying.

9.5 mm is small enough so the drive you mentioned should work. the instructions should be fine too... if they aren't, you can use these.

-r.

[megasad]

Kitty : Perhaps your iBook is singing Gir's "Doom song" from Invader Zim?

Doom-doom-doom!


[EDIT - Kitty (AKA wasabi_Bread) forgot to log out of my account, log into hers, hence her posting something under my name.]

[megasad]

Well, I've got the 20GB 5400rpm Seagate Drive sitting next to me in its anti-static sheath and I'm all ready to go with the taking-apart-fiddle-about-put-back-together of my iBook.

Hopefully, I'll be back online in a few hours, and iBook Swan shall be resurrected.

Let's just hope this doesn't go tits up.

[megasad]

It didn't go tits up, but I am a retard.

Why am I a retard? Because, after ripping my entire iBook apart, I thought that the little black Torx screws in the sides of the old hard drive were part of the drive itself and that I needed to go out and buy four tiny screws for the new one.

For your information, NOWHERE on Tottenham Court Road sells "tiny screws," not even Maplin.

So, after two hours of fruitless searching, I got home, decided to give the Torx screwdriver a try and they popped right out. The Apple manual could have been a little more helpful... Like, by actually saying, "unscrew those hippy screws," rather than leaving it to my foolish brain...

Taking the iBook apart, and then putting it back together, is something I hope never to have to do again; it sucks monkey balls.

Anyway, my iBook works without wires once more; no FireWire drive needed, it can run from its own internal drive.

Now this iBook is my girlfriend's, until she gets a new PowerBook, so I'm back on the old G3 iMac with the FireWire drive again...

New eMacs by June?