I need a bigger HDD - options?

[petenet]

Hi there.

I recently switched over to Mac from the world of XP. I bought an iBook G4 with a 40GB HDD from Apple. I want to move most of media files over to it now, since I like it so much.

The problem is, 40GB isn't going to be enough - I'd like to move up to 100GB. What are my options here? Can I just go to Fry's and by a HDD to install myself? Or is this something Apple needs to do?

Thanks in advance!

-Peter

[mynameis]

Its not the easiest thing to do, but it is possible to do it yourself. Just depends on how comfortable you are with it. I don't know how that affects your warranty.

[petenet]

I am pretty good with computers, so I think I could probably do it.

When it comes to hardware, what do I need?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148090

Would that work?

[to_tough_to_die]

The iBook is notorious for being horribly difficult to work with. It takes something like 54 screws to get inside the case to allow you to do any serious upgrades.

[discombobulated]

just buy an external hard drive.

[Corrosive]

Use a good external firewire drive... thats the best bet. You could upgrade the HDD with pretty much any hd *check ebay, but as said above its hard.

I am in the same boat as you, I had a pc but now I got the Ibook the pc just sits there. I dont have a whole lot so I just got a 15gb Ipod to use as a firewire transfer to quickly carry over my pics and some music. Congrats on the purchase!

[petenet]

Thanks for the replies, I do appreciate it.

While the idea of an external HDD makes sense, it's not practical for me as I want to bring my media with me. Believe me, I wish it was that easy.

I found a website that shows how to do this, but it doesn't look like something I have any interest in doing. That being said, I found a couple of companies that will do the swap for a small fee - since I don't need them to move the OS. Speaking of that, it's easy to reinstall the OS, correct? How do I boot the dvd/rom?

Thanks again.

- Pete

[ultrablue]

If you bought your ibook from Apple directly, why did you not choose to customize your ibook? They can come with up to 80 Gb I believe.

Other than that. Learn to only carry what you NEED on the ibook and leave all the porn on the external HD.

[Aptmunich]

Well if you can get someone to install it (that's what I did), just pop in your system disc (included with the iBook) and hold down 'C' to boot from there.
Complete the setup process and you should be done.

Alternatively: Buy a firewire or USB enclosure for your old harddrive and use the same setup process to migrate all your old data/settings/apps over from your old harddrive.