DId you install it yourself? Was it tough to do?

cmeisenzahl - Sep 14, 2005 05:30pm

Really no degradation in battery life?

Is it an approved Apple drive or from some 3rd party? How big?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

afaik apple doesn’t support any laptop upgrades after your purchase of a notebook. The “apple” drive in my stock iBook? a stock Toshiba 30GB w/ an Apple sticker on it. don’t quote me on the apple upgrade, but i’m guessing they wouldn’t support, for instance, a PB 5400 rpm drive to be installed in an iBook. if a local apple genius was able to do it, it would likely be w/ an iBook-only “apple” HD.

nope,no degradation. before 3.75+ hrs depending on use, usually 4-4.5+ w/ casual use and wireless on. after the upgrade, same deal. i did quite a bit of research on the drives before going w/ it, even so far as to look up the stock drive’s specs to make sure it wasn’t an issue, before sticking in the Hitachi 7k60, 60GB.

i did the install myself, initially w/ the help of a G3 iBook install guide. it is tedious, but doable especially w/ a spludger. beyond the outer shell however screw counts and placements were off, so i just drew up my own rought schematics of locations and such. now it’s much easier as the same site has G4 install and repair guides online.

you can just print off pics of the various steps and use them as templates for your process.
http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/

and yes, this kind of work voids your warranty.

hmmm, begs the question of how many people have swapped out a combodrive for the super drive....

I’m ok with the smaller hdd for now but a superdrive would be a welcome addition

triadone - Sep 24, 2005 03:53pm

yeh, i think my next upgrade might bea super drive. at the time i got the drive superdrives wree a bit pricey, but have come down quite a bit. next effort? 120GB 5400rpm drive and an 8x dual layer capable superdrive.

I’ve installed many a harddrive in a lappy - but the optical drive always looks like a nightmare! Let us know how hard/easy it is when you get to it.