05-12-2009, 05:30 AM

The hard drive in my iBook G4 (12") died. I replaced the hard drive by following the instructions on iFixit.com. Which I did not do successfully, so I went through the replacement instructions again to check my work and still was not successful. The computer does not see the new hard drive. I booted the computer with the OS install disk and the drive does not show. I also went to the disk utility and the hard drive does not show there either.

Any suggestions?

05-12-2009, 06:21 AM

Have you zapped the PRAM? Hold down option , p and r and let the chimes sound 3 times.
This clears the pram. Try that and then boot from the CD.

05-12-2009, 06:29 AM

What are the specs on your iBook G4? Also which Hard Drive did you purchase for it? Make and Model.

Were you careful when taking out the old drive and putting in the new one to not kink the ribbon cable? The iBook G4 takes an IDE (ATA) 2.5" laptop hard drive.

Give us some more info please. Something is wrong if you booted from the OSX DVD and no drive even in disk utility. I would tell you to try the old drive but you said it's dead so that will not help with anything.

05-12-2009, 04:28 PM

After removing your old HD, did you verify its failure by hooking it up to another Mac via and adapter or external drive case? I only ask as I've seen a few apparent iBook G4 HD failures, sometimes intermittent, that turned out to be logic board failures. In each case I tried the HD flex cable with no success. It's rare to find new hard drive failures, unless it was a used one from eBay. Another option could be the drives flex cable damaged, especially if the connector wasn't removed carefully from the drive.