An iBook Odyssey

Let me begin by saying that I have been extremely pleased with my iBook. I got it as a refurbished product right after the 1 GHz models came out for about $250 off its retail price. It is one of the 14-inch models with a built-in Airport (802.11g) card, a 32 MB graphics card, a 933Mhz G4 processor, built-in 56k modem, and a 40 GB hard drive. It has been a real workhorse over the last 2-3 years and has never given me a spot of trouble. It certainly can’t compare to one of the new MacBooks (pro or otherwise), but it has always served me faithfully no matter how much abuse I’ve put it through. Yep, what a great machine, except…..

There’s always that “except” isn’t there? No matter how recent our machine, no matter how much we profess our love and admiration for our current hardware, that bright new shiny thingamabob is there, taunting us, taking the sheen off what was once our pride and joy. The happiness we felt when we first lifted our Mac whatever out of its box seems to last about 6 months for the most part. Why so short? Because that’s when Steve Jobs takes the stage to tell us ALL about the new Mac whatever’s taking the place of what came before which now pales (look up “sucks by comparison” in the dictionary). Yeah it blows, but progress marches on! You’d think at some point someone would stand up and say, “You know? Computers are fast enough to do what I want them to do. No need to spend another couple of grand for the 10% speed bump. I’m plenty satisfied with what I have by cracky!*” And then the whole world’s economy collapses.

My current “except” with my iBook is a simple one. One that has plagued computer users since the dawn of the Apple II. The “except” that currently has me bugged? It’s the, “How am I supposed to fit my stuff in this little space?”, dilemma.

If you had been paying attention in the beginning of this article (as I know you have), you would have noted that my iBook has a 40 Gb hard drive. Where once this seemed like vast open spaces, with files and documents few and far between, now seems like a Tokyo subway car during rush hour. There are easy solutions of course. Buy external USB or FireWire drives. There are many that are buss-powered, so I don’t even have to have them plugged into AC power. So, when this first hit some time ago, I bought a USB 2 drive and a FireWire drive (80 Gb and 40 Gb respectively). Worked great for a while except when I traveled. Trying to balance my laptop and a connected drive or two is a big pain in the rump. Not to mention how seriously stupid you look while doing so. I don’t need any help in looking or sounding stupid, so I decided that the best plan was to increase the amount of storage space within the iBook.

I started looking online for 2.5-inch ATA hard drives that would work with the iBook. Saw all kinds of sizes and decided that the best bang for the buck would be about a 100 Gb drive. I suppose I could have bought it online, but when I decide to do something, I like to just go ahead and do it before something happens to make me change my mind. So on Sunday morning I went off to a local retailer (they don’t advertise on MyMac, so screw giving them a mention) and bought the drive I wanted.

Once I got home, I got out my iBook and started giving it a good look over. Then I did what I probably SHOULD have done in the first place, I looked online for disassembly instructions. Found a pretty comprehensive guide to taking apart an iBook at iFixit.com. 19 pages worth of comprehension. 19 pages worth of step-by-step instructions. Chances are if I had actually taken the time to find this first, I might have chickened out. Of course I could have just returned the drive, but that seemed like giving up. OK, it would have been like giving up.

I downloaded the guide and printed it out. Once that was accomplished, step two was backing up completely the existing drive. So, using SuperDuper, I backed up the entire drive to my FireWire 40 Gb. Yeah, I know I reviewed CarbonCopyCloner AND gave someone a hard time for talking about SuperDuper, but frankly after trying both, it’s a better program. Then I got my trusty computer tools together and began the onerous task of taking this monster apart. The engineer at Apple who designed the iBook could not have figured that anyone would be dim-witted enough to try and take it apart. He obviously never had to deal with the likes of me. Following the guide, I took out all the little screws, the two metal shields, the keyboard, the little alcove for the Airport card, the power connectors, and all the other little pieces that make up an iBook. By the time I had finally gotten to the stage where I could remove the old drive, I felt exhausted. I replaced the drive with the new one and began using the instructions in reverse to put it back together again. I had a problem with one teeny, tiny little screw near the CD/DVD slot, but figured, eh, who cares? This would come back to haunt me later.

I finished assembling the iBook and noticed that I had a few parts left over. As an old hand at putting kid’s bikes together, I decided that whatever didn’t kill me (or my kids on shakily assembled bicycles) made me stronger. I fired it up and was delighted on hearing the familiar BOOOOONG of the iBook starting up without any smoke or fire rising from slots where they didn’t belong. Of course it didn’t boot-up since this was a blank drive, so, I got out the FireWire drive that I had backed up to and got the iBook running. I started up SuperDuper from that drive and had it initiate the task of putting all my stuff back in. Some time after that, it was complete and the iBook came to life under its own drive. Absolutely no problem. Everything was ticking along nicely.

With the additional storage space, this meant I no longer had to keep all my instruments and loops for GarageBand on a separate drive, so I snagged my copy of Apple’s Symphony Loops collection with the intent of putting it into the Combo Drive to load. Except I had a little difficulty. Said difficulty was actually getting the iBook to accept the disk…as in it wouldn’t. Turns out that screw I so nonchalantly figured was no big deal, actually was a big deal. It was jammed, blocking the slot where the disks go in. After I finished using all the words that I can’t repeat in front of my kids at least twice, I considered my options.

OPTION 1: Slam my head against the wall and admit that I am hopelessly outclassed in dealing with the finicky nature of laptop construction. Hmm, this sucks since I would have to admit to my wife that I’m a fumble-fingered klutz. Of course I am a fumble-fingered klutz, I just don’t like admitting it to my wife.

OPTION 2: Slam my head against the wall and admit that I am hopelessly outclassed in dealing with the finicky nature of laptop construction and give it to Apple to fix. This has all the bad parts of option 1 and it was going to cost me more money.

OPTION 3: Take the whole thing apart again and try to get the screw out where it was jammed.

The more prudent among us would have opted for option 2. Apple would have repaired it and while some money would have to go their way, you would be assured of having your machine back without possibly sending it to the great laptop heaven in the sky if you screw it up even worse. Because then you’re not only out your laptop, but you also need to buy another one.

I am neither prudent nor smart. I decided option 3 was the way to go. So, I took the whole thing apart again, managed to get the screw threads sticking out the slot where I could grab it with some needle-nose pliers, and using a flat-head screwdriver, gently twisted within the slot to make it as wide as I could without actually breaking it apart. God truly loves me and no damage was done. The screw was out and I once again put the whole thing back together. I put the battery back in place and turned it on. No fire, no smoke and it booted up like it was supposed to. I’ll start the process of re-installing all my Apple Audio Loops as soon as I can find a little spare time. Valuable lessons learned, I certainly wouldn’t make this kind of mistake again unless I really really want to.

The best part? I had fewer left over pieces the second time around.

*You have to be over the age of 45 to use the phrase “By cracky”.